Rating: NR | Runtime: 122 minutes
Release Date: September 21st, 2022 (South Korea) / October 7th, 2022 (USA)
Studio: The Contents On / Well Go USA Entertainment
Director(s): Kim Hong-sun
Writer(s): Kim Hong-sun

There’s nowhere to run.

I had a lot of fun with Kim Hong-sun’s Project Wolf Hunting—so much that I can easily look past the last-second revelation that’s thrown-in to make sure potential financiers know it has sequel potential. I’d honestly watch that follow-up if it ever comes to fruition to reward this one for knowing to keep exposition in the background. Get us with the hook and assault us with the mythology later.

We learn just enough to traverse the narrative twists and turns once good guys and bad guys swap places (or prove exactly who we knew they were). Anything beyond using the vague “experiment” tag for creating super-soldiers would only bog down the reason we’ve bought a ticket: blood.

There’s a lot of blood. More than just what a monster movie would provide too since this is also a brutally violent escape thriller on behalf of twenty or so extreme criminals being extradited back to their homeland of South Korea from the Philippines. Think Con Air first and a high-numbered exploitative Friday the 13th chapter second.

Because the existence of a sedated corpse with eyes sewn shut down in the bowels of the cargo ship being used to transport these inmates isn’t an issue until it is. We’ve still got an hour of hubristic cops letting their guard down while “Red Notice” prisoner Park Jong-Du’s (Seo In-Guk) revenge plan is set in motion. With machine guns, blades, and bad-ass police captain Lee Seok Woo’s (Park Ho-San) baton in play, more bodies might actually fall before Alpha (Gwi-hwa Choi) wakes up.

The whole works on a level of pure entertainment alone, but the gradual introduction of backstory and motivations definitely does add another gear. We want to know what Oh Dae Woong (Dong-il Sung) is supervising once he takes over ground control for the mission—the transport of the prisoners or Alpha?

We’re curious as to why Lee Do Il (Dong-Yoon Jang) also has a “Red Notice” when he seems so much more docile than his sadistic counterpart. Some inmates are with Jong-Du. Some simply follow him because of the protection he provides after mowing down the police contingent to a handful including Lee Seok Woo and Detective Lee Da Yeon (Jung So-Min). Once Alpha’s Frankenstein footsteps start clanking at super speed, however, they’re all just trying to stay alive.

So, throw in survival feature too because Hongsun Kim isn’t afraid of any genre. There’s even a bit of romance courtesy of prisoners Choi Myung Joo (Jang Young-Nam) and Go Kun-bae (Ko Chang-seok). And if twenty some inmates, twenty some cops, a cargo ship’s crew, and the military grade operation under Oh Dae Woong’s control sounds like too many characters to keep track of—you’re correct.

It’s okay, though, since you can bet most (if not all) will wind up dead. I was confused at one point that there could still be another hour left despite how many people were already reduced to pulverized flesh because I forgot just how many other poor souls were waiting in the wings. Don’t worry, though. They’ll all get to choke on their own blood eventually.

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Seo In-Guk in PROJECT WOLF HUNTING; courtesy of Well Go USA.