Project Wolf Hunting Review: An Uber-Violent Mash-Up Of Con Air And A Slasher Movie [TIFF]
Gorehounds, look no further than "Project Wolf Hunting," Kim Hong-sun's ridiculously violent South Korean sci-fi-action-horror pic that plays like a mash-up of "Con Air" and a slasher pic, with a little "Frankenstein" thrown in for good measure. While the film overstays its welcome (it's a minute over 2 hours," those thirsty for plenty of plasma and gnarly practical effects will their money's worth — nearly every scene of this splatterfest is soaked in gore.
As our story begins, a group of ultra-dangerous Korean criminals are loaded onto a cargo ship that's headed from the Philippines to South Korea. As anyone who has seen "Con Air" can tell you, locking a bunch of scary criminals in a closed-off moving object is a recipe for disaster. Sure enough, it's not long before the criminals escape their shackles, lead by the tattoo-covered, kill-happy psychopath Jong-du (Seo In-guk), a character who revels in being drenched in blood (there's an amusing scene where the character changes out of one bloody shirt for a fresh one, only to then immediately cover his new threads in more blood).
Meanwhile, law enforcement agents on board the ship, like tough guy Dae-woong (Sung Dong-il) and female cop Da-yeon (Jung So-mi) have to fight for their lives as the criminals start slaughtering both guards and the ship's crew. But not all of them are cold-blooded killers — there's the mysterious Do-il (Jang Dong-yoon), who goes along with the escape — up until a point when he decides enough is enough.
Lots and lots and lots of blood
The first hour of "Project Wolf Hunting" is a non-stop bloodfest ... and so is the second hour. There's almost no respite here, and it starts to get exhausting. To keep things interesting, though, the second half of the film throws in a whole new twist: a type of Frankenstein Monster creature being experimented on in the bowels of the ship. If you're guessing the monster gets loose and starts going crazy against the criminals, you're right.
This concept — an inhuman monster vs. human monsters — is pretty damn neat! But "Project Wolf Hunting" never quite achieves what it's going for. More than that, the movie introduces all sorts of mythology that gives the entire thing the feeling of a TV series that got turned into a feature film. Perhaps they're trying to set up a sequel, or an entire franchise. Perhaps not. All I know is that the film's unrestricted bloodshed began to grow tiresome. How can you make so much gore so uninteresting?
But perhaps I'm overthinking things. Perhaps the admittedly stellar action coupled with the abundant practical gore is really all "Project Wolf Hunting" is interested in. If so, it's a complete success. But I personally would've appreciated just a little more brains to go along with all the blood and guts.
/Film Rating: 5.5 out of 10