Chalk up another deal for IFC Films at Cannes. In addition to their acquisition of distribution rights for Josh Safdie's indie comedy The Pleasure of Being Robbed, Arnaud Desplechin's acclaimed drama A Christmas Tale (Un conte de Noël), Olivier Assayas' family drama Summer Hours and Russian dramatic fairy tale Mermaid (which I wrote about here and here), they have picked up all North American rights to an Asian serial-killer thriller that screened as one of the Cannes Midnight selections this past Saturday night.

According to indieWIRE, Na Hong-jin's The Chaser (Chugyeogja) "tells the story of a detective turned pimp who finds himself in trouble when several of his girls disappear without paying him." The film was released in its native South Korea in February and was a good-sized hit. IFC Films has not yet announced whether The Chaser will get a theatrical release or head directly to the company's video on demand service. More information is available at the Korean-language official site, including a trailer.

David Hudson at GreenCine Daily gathered links to the first few reviews out of Cannes, which give away the basic structure of the film, so beware if you want to enter cold. The reviewers basically agreed that The Chaser shows a lot of promise for a first-time director, but whether it fully delivers is a different matter. Several noted the extreme, grisly violence. Remake rights have already been snapped up by Warner Brothers, which Monika Bartyzel wrote about in March.

No, Leonardo DiCaprio isn't joining a sequel of that crappy Codename flick. He is, however, looking to star in a Korean thriller remake -- but it won't be in the vein of those many supernatural thriller re-dos. The Hollywood Reporter has posted that right after Warner Brothers picked up the remake rights to The Chaser for mid-six figures, Leo started looking at the lead, presumably because The Departed helmer William Monahan is in talks to direct.

Should he sign on, Leo will play an "ex-cop who goes on the warpath trying to find a missing girl. The girl, who may or may not be alive, is being used by a serial killer to taunt the police." That whole "may or may not" thing, mixed with taunting, is filling my head with visions of kid digits and horror, but hopefully the taunting is just with some carefully-lettered ransoms or "nyah nyah" taunts.

Not surprisingly, the original is a hit in Korea, which sparked the attention of many, including Vertigo Entertainment's Roy Lee and Doug Davison, who, I quote: "specialize in bringing Asian fare to American audiences." Just as I imagine Michael Clayton gets sick of clean-ups, you gotta wonder how tiring it is to have your whole job revolve around redoing films. They must hate rants about remakes.