Project Wolf Hunting Review from Well Go USA Entertainment and Screambox!

I’ve been reading about Project Wolf Hunting (늑대사) from South Korean for a couple months now and it has high praise among gore film fans. I finally got around to checking it out as it’s now being released worldwide on various formats after a successful run at various festivals (Stiges, Fantasia Fest, TIFF etcetera). 

Expectations were high and for the most part they were met. We get an ambitious and vibrant looking big budget production like something out of the Jerry Bruckheimer playbook that delivers a story with many layers. The plot gets hard to follow as it’s overshadowed by all the incredible fast paced action and bloodletting on display. I’m not one for comparisons but if you took the film The Raid, mixed it with Predator, or The Terminator, and amplified it by 1000 times you get Project Wolf Hunting. There are many elements borrowed from other films as well such as Universal Soldier, Con Air, Resident Evil, and the list goes on and on. Project Wolf Hunting lifts strong elements from these films and digs in deep delivering a visually violent display of carnage for the senses.

With a 2-hour running time you really need to keep the audience engaged. Director Hongsun Kim pulls out all the stops by navigating various twists and turns. There are many characters in the film, and they die unexpectedly so don’t get too attached. In some instances, I found the film too character heavy. You don’t have time to get to know the characters. You can’t get attached and experience that emotional bond. For myself, I invest time in a film for that experience (in a good film anyways) and Project Wolf Hunting moves at such a breakneck speed and has such a massive cast it’s hard to accomplish here.

There are a few memorable characters such as the senior police detective Lee Seok-woo played by Park Ho San. Lee Seok-woo is feisty and not afraid to beat the living shit out of the bad guys when they get out of line. His character is a definitive stand out in the film. Park Jong-doo played by Seo In-Guk plays a charismatic villain who leads a daring escape on board the ship they are being expedited back to South Korea on. Lee Do-il played by Dong-Yoon Jang plays a mysterious criminal with a past who has something to do with the experiment being hidden on board the ship, his actions are heroic in many scenes where he actually aids the authorities. Alpha played by Gwi-hwa Choi is the unstoppable killing machine who singlehandedly destroys most of the cast. Finally, Oh Dae-woong played by Dong-il Sung is the man responsible for overseeing the whole top secret Project Wolf Hunting and succeeding at all costs as instructed by his unknown superiors.

Project Wolf Hunting begins in 2017 where a botched prisoner transportation at a public airport goes horribly wrong. Move to 2022 where authorities have chosen safer non-threatening to the public means of expediting dangerous criminals charged in the Philippines back to South Korea to answer for their crimes. The answer is a 58,000-tonne cargo ship in Manilla called The Frontier Titan. The authorities headed up by chief detective Lee Seok-woo get down to business loading the criminals on board. Criminal bad ass, Park Jong-woo, presses the chief’s buttons first and finds out what happens when you fuck around. Once on board there is an escape plot by Park Jong-woo and at the same time The Alpha is being stored below deck unknowingly as part of another sinister project/experiment. 

Eventually all hell breaks loose, the criminals lay siege to the ship killing the detectives, and ship crew until a bunch of surviving authorities fight back. Alpha is soon awakened from his slumber, and he doesn’t discriminate as he kills everyone. There are lots of sub-plots and stories ensue and the viewer just sits back in awe at the beautiful ballet of cacophony on display. We get a bunch of background info on the Project Wolf Hunting Experiment and Alpha. There is another sub plot with Lee Do-il and Oh Dae-woong that comes to light and there is just a ton of gore bursting carnage let loose. 

Throats are stabbed and slashed, limbs twisted off and broken, heads crushed, limbs bitten off, bloody shootings — an endless awash of violence and bloodshed on display. 2.5 tons of blood was used in the making of the film and surprisingly only 57 is the body count for the duration of the movie. When Alpha arrives, it turns into Friday The 13th much the same as an unstoppable Jason Voorhees mowing down much of the cast on board the ship in various gruesome slasher-esque ways. 

Project Wolf Hunting is a solid film. It took a big shit in the toilet, but it borrowed other shits from other films toilets to make it a colossal shit to end all shits in the toilet. It could certainly benefit from a second watch because there is so much going on in terms of characters, events, and sub-plots I never touched on in this long-winded review. The conclusion does leave room for a sequel and judging from the film’s success it’ll definitely happen. I watched the film with subtitles as I get the most out of the film in its original spoken language and not from a goofy English dubbed translation.

AKA: 늑대사냥, Neugdaesanyang, Projeto Caça ao Lobo, Proyecto Wolf Hunting, Wilcze stado, Navă la Busan, Корабль в Пусан, 行動代號：狼狩獵

Directed by: Hongsun Kim
Written by: Hongsun Kim
Produced by: Gu Seong-mok
Cinematography by: Ju-Hwan Yun
Editing by: Min-kyeong Shin
Music by: Kim Jun-sung, Jo Ran
Special Effects by:
Cast: Seo In-Guk, Dong-Yoon Jang, Jung So-Min, Gwi-hwa Choi, Dong-il Sung, Park Ho-San, Chang-Seok Ko, Jang Young-Nam
Year: 2022
Country: South Korea
Language: Korean (English Subtitles)
Colour: Colour
Runtime: 2h 2min

Studio: Cheum Film, Contents G
Distributor: Well Go USA Entertainment, Hi-Yah!, Screambox