Review - Project Wolf Hunting

Directed by: Kim Hongsun
Written by: Kim Hongsun
Starring: Seo In-guk, Jang Dong-yoon, Choi Guyhwa, Sung Dong-il
Running Time: 122 minutes
Rating: 3/5

Project Wolf Hunting is literally the bloodiest film I’ve ever seen (2.5 tons of blood according to director Hong-sun Kim), a great film to watch with a huge crowd but ultimately gets exhausting. It sets the standard for gore and constant crowd reactions at Midnight Madness (not to mention a fight breaking out at the front row right at the start of the film). But all the blood and killing gets extremely repetitive. I knew what I was in for when I bought my ticket but I feel like this film could’ve done with less gore and just slightly more character development?

The film is about a tanker that is being used to shuttle a bunch of violent criminals from the Philippines to South Korea. Of course, this is a recipe for disaster and the prisoners escape, lead by K-pop star Seo In-guk who is one of the most twisted and depraved characters of recent memory. The cops on board the ship like Lee Seok-woo (Park Ho-San) and female cop Da-yeon (Jung So-mi) have to fight for survival as the prisoners overtake the ship. But as all this comes to ahead as we get introduced to “the monster” who has such a memorable entrance that it deserves some recognition. He drops down as the cops and prisoners are massacring each other and kicks a prisoner so hard blood starts spewing out of every orifice of his body. At this point the film starts making you question who the main character is as everyone just starts dropping like flies.

“Project Wolf Hunting is literally the bloodiest film I’ve ever seen, a great film to watch with a huge crowd but ultimately gets exhausting.”

The concept has a lot of potential, focusing on a very bloody cops / criminals first third (ala Con Air), turns into a horror film in the second and ends up as a Sci-Fi film that sets up a sequel. It’s an overstuffed narrative that feels like it would’ve benefited with pairing down a lot of the needless elements like cutting out some characters that ultimately added nothing to the story besides a higher body count and just completely getting rid of the entire third act as it just did not work. If the second half focused on the horror survival aspect and not introducing a completely out of left field Deus ex machina it would’ve felt a lot better, but I digress.

It was a fun film to watch with the Midnight Madness crowd but seeing someone get killed literally every minute gets exhausting. It kept trying to outdo itself to the point where it couldn’t go any further. Adding just a bit more brains to all the blood and guts would’ve benefitted the film overall.