Where the English subtitles succeed brilliantly is in handling the film’s frantic, overlapping dialogue. The Chaser is famous for scenes where characters shout over one another in a cacophony of panic. The subtitle track is forced to simplify and streamline. For instance, a five-second burst of three people yelling different threats might be condensed into a single line: “Stop him!” While this sacrifices linguistic fidelity, it paradoxically enhances the film’s kinetic realism. An overly literal subtitle—with timestamps for every syllable—would clutter the screen and slow the eye, destroying the breakneck pace that Na Hong-jin meticulously constructed. The subtitles, in their necessary truncation, become co-authors of the film’s rhythm.