Review - HUNT
Directed by: Lee Jung-jae
Written by: Lee Jung-jae, Jo Seung-hee
Starring:Lee Jung-jae, Jung Woo-sung, Jeon Hye-jin, Heo Sung-tae
Running Time: 125 minutes
Rating: 2.5/5
HUNT, the directorial debut of Squid Game actor Lee Jung-jae, shows promise but is ultimately unable to make the totality stronger than the sum of its parts.
Days after receiving the Emmy for his stellar performance in Netflix’s 2021 success Squid Game, Lee Jung-jae was present for the TIFF premiere of his movie HUNT, a spy thriller set in Korea in the early ‘80s, four years after the assassination of South Korean president Park Chung-hee. The movie pits opposing security agencies against each other as they seek to uncover the truth and find the mole amongst them. The chaotic nature of the twists would be sufficient in any other movie, but everything in this film unfortunately feels like the chaos is bleeding through. The relationship between Lee’s Pyong-ho and Jung-do (played by Jung Woo-sung). The double-crosses that turn into triple-crosses. The reality of the identity of Donglim (the mole whose identity the movie focuses on). All of it was too much several miles back.
The reality is that HUNT like other Korean movies, is speaking, in a way, its own language. The cinematography feels different. The screenplay sensibilities feel different. The balance between drama and soap operatic melodrama feels different. And so in some ways, some of the issues that disconnect the audience from the film are a product of cultural preference. However, it is undeniable that in their attempt to create unexpected surprises, the script for HUNT is left overly complicated and even non-sensical. The final moments of the third act are closer to leaving you bewildered than satisfied.
“It is undeniable that in their attempt to create unexpected surprises, the script for HUNT is left overly complicated and even non-sensical. The final moments of the third act are closer to leaving you bewildered than satisfied.”
Where HUNT is more interesting is in the action set pieces. While they do feel at times like a separate movie from the spy thriller we start out with, they at least seem like they belong in a stronger movie. In fact, a scene in the streets of Tokyo is perhaps the highlight of the entire film. But going from that satisfying scene back into spy betrayals and torture tactics give you whiplash. It seems that Lee would have done a better job by picking either of these two genres and sticking to it.
While Lee’s direction isn’t able to pull the story together, his acting does a good job of cementing the main character and much of the movie into the realm of the enjoyable. But no amount of acting could perform the magic trick required to land this movie. There’s plot twists. Then plot twists in plot twists. Then plot twists, that through a plot twist, appear to no longer be plot twists.
Korean cinema has been on a rise for the last couple of decades and so going into a movie like HUNT. its hard not to have incredibly high expectations. This serious film falls so short of those expectations that it can sometimes feel like a comedy. If there’s someone out there that kept up with the revelations and enjoyed the journey fully, now that would be a plot twist.
