PROJECT WOLF HUNTING (NEUGDAESANYANG) movie poster | ©2023 Well Go USA Entertainment

Rating: Not Rated
Stars: Seo In-guk, Jang Dong-yoon, Park Ho-san, Jeong So-min, Go Chang-seok, Jang Young-nam, Son Jong-hak, Jung Moon-sung, Lee Sung-wook, Hong Ji-yoon, Sung Dong-il
Writer: Kim Hongsun
Director: Kim Hongsun
Distributor: Well Go USA Entertainment
Release Date: February 14, 2023

For those who worry about such things, PROJECT WOLF HUNTING is not about searching for wild canines. It also, as it turns out, is not really about extraditing forty-seven Korean accused criminals from the Philippines, where they have taken refuge, although that’s how the film starts out.

Due to an earlier airport fiasco, the police in both nations have determined that it’s a better idea to move the suspects from Manila to Busan via freighter ship. They are accompanied by over twenty veteran Korean detectives, who install their own ship’s crew.

As with CON AIR and similar stories, some of these criminals are the worst of the worst. One of these is the heavily-tattooed Park Jong-do (Seo In-guk), a villain so vile he jokes about raping schoolgirls. This gets him a severe beatdown from Chief Detective Captain Lee (Park Ho-san).

The fact that PROJECT WOLF HUNTING depicts a cop hitting a chained prisoner with a baton as a righteous action – Jong-do is so awful that we retroactively can’t blame Captain Lee – is one indication of the film’s sensibilities.

Jong-do has a plan, and isn’t shy about executing it (in every sense of the word), but even he has respect for quiet, clean-cut fellow prisoner Lee Do-il (Jang Dong-yoon).

Neither Jong-do nor Captain Lee has any idea about what’s going on way below decks, where the subject of a very unhygienic experiment is being kept.

But wait, there’s more …

PROJECT WOLF HUNTING plays out in three more or less distinct acts. There’s the strictly prisoner/cops conflict, there’s the havoc that happens once the experiment breaks out, and there’s a third act where we get some explanations that raise more questions.

Writer/director Kim Hongsun stages action both bracingly and frequently. He also does well with the gore, although he starts this out at such a high level that he doesn’t leave himself much room to escalate as the film progresses.

There are multiple layers of plot here, but as they come to light, they become confusing. If X orchestrated Z, then Y …? Also, how? And simply in terms of actor blocking, why does Detective Lee Da-yeon (Jung So-min) point her revolver at her own chin every time she’s ducked down during a gunfight?

For all Hongsun’s many characters in PROJECT WOLF HUNTING, he gives us few to root for. Captain Lee and Lee Da-yeon are extremely dedicated. Jang gives Do-il dignity, power and a sense of deep sorrow. Since we don’t get to know any of them very well, our investment is more intellectual curiosity than emotional.

Not that we get to know the bad guys all that much, either. Nor do we want to – they are chatty and either so egregiously brutal or so cowardly that we mainly just want them to get their comeuppance and shut up.

PROJECT WOLF HUNTING provides action satisfaction. In horror terms, it’s bloody but has no scares whatsoever. Narratively, it has twists but little conventional engagement. We’re curious about what comes next, but never hopeful nor afraid.

In Korean, with English subtitles.

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