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Project Wolf Hunting Is Pure Bloody Bliss

In the last few weeks of 2022, I saw a whole bunch of trailers for indie movies coming out in the next couple of months. Some looked good, some looked bad, but one of them stood out in a particular way: the trailer for a Korean film called Project Wolf Hunting. It looked like a brutal, blood-soaked action/horror mashup, so I couldn’t wait to check it out. I requested a screener as soon as I could, and after getting the chance to see it, I’m happy to report that I was not disappointed.

Project Wolf Hunting, written and directed by Kim Hong-Sung, stars Seo In-guk, Jang Dong-yoon, Sung Dong-il, and Jung So-min. It’s set on a ship that’s transporting a group of dangerous criminals from the Philippines to Korea, and almost immediately, these criminals escape their shackles and go on the attack. From there, an all-out war ensues between them and the police officers guarding them, but soon enough, a bigger threat emerges. They unknowingly awaken a bloodthirsty, zombie-esque super soldier who’s also on board, and when he enters the mix, nobody is safe.

For about the first 25 minutes or so, Project Wolf Hunting is all setup. And while I was anxiously awaiting the start of the action, I still really enjoyed this first part. Showing the preparations being made for the trip, it introduces us to some of the major players in the story. Granted, between the cops and the convicts, there are simply too many characters for us to really get to know them in any depth, but the performances are all pretty good, so the little bit we do learn about these people is fun enough to hold us over until the action starts.

Two people fighting

Then, when the criminals finally escape their handcuffs and go on the attack, they’re utterly ruthless. They show absolutely no mercy to their guards, and they show no qualms about killing anyone and everyone who gets in their way, even the ship’s innocent crew members. It’s enough to make even the most hardcore action fans happy, so if you’re looking for brutal violence that doesn’t skimp on the blood and gore, Project Wolf Hunting is definitely the movie for you.

That goes on for about another 25 minutes or so, and then, at about the halfway point of Project Wolf Hunting, the real threat comes into the mix. A super soldier just kind of show up out of nowhere during one particularly tense showdown between the cops and the criminals, and when that happens, the film somehow gets even better.

For starters, this super soldier looks amazing. His eyes are sewn shut, and the rest of his body looks like he’s been through hell, so even though he’s really just an enhanced human being, he looks and feels like a genuine monster. That makes his presence super imposing right from the get-go, so before he even goes for his first kill, you know he’s going to wreck shop.

When he finally makes that first move, he does not disappoint. This guy is just as vicious as the criminals, but he’s also much more of an indiscriminate killer. The convicts, more or less, stick by each other, but this super soldier goes after anybody he comes across, cop or criminal. Because of that, he essentially becomes a slasher villain from here on out, so even though Project Wolf Hunting is first and foremost an action movie, it still has enough of a horror vibe to satisfy fans of both genres.

A woman holding a gun

What’s more, since this super soldier is so much stronger than anybody else on the ship, his kills are even more brutal than what we saw in the first half of the film. Once again, it’s a thing of bloody beauty, so as a pure action movie, this is absolutely top-notch stuff.

All that being said, I will admit that Project Wolf Hunting isn’t quite perfect. In particular, it has two flaws that really stood out to me. Most noticeably, the film expands the mythology behind the super soldier in some interesting ways, but the last 15 or 20 minutes take it in a direction I found somewhat underwhelming. I won’t spoil what happens, but it makes the super soldier a little less scary than he was before, and I thought that was a bit of a bummer.

More subtly, but probably more importantly, the characters also bring the movie down a tiny bit. When the credits began to roll, I thought about how Project Wolf Hunting compares to my favorite films of 2022, and I realized something. As much as I loved the action in this movie, the lack of character development would’ve kept it out of my top 10 if it had come out last year. Sure, I enjoyed the characters for what they were, but if I’m being honest, they were little more than fodder for the super soldier. I never connected with them in any meaningful way, so I didn’t care what happened to them. And because of that, I have to say that this isn’t quite as good as something like The Northman, which combines awesome action with equally awesome characters.

Don’t get me wrong. Despite those two flaws, I still loved Project Wolf Hunting and had an absolute blast with it. I’m happy to say that I highly, highly recommend this movie. It’s an utterly brutal mashup of action and horror that’s sure to satisfy fans of both genres, so if you want to have a bloody good time (and I mean that literally!), you need to check this film out.

Project Wolf Hunting hits VOD, DVD, and Blu-ray on February 14.

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Written by JP Nunez

JP Nunez is a lifelong horror fan. From a very early age, he learned to love monsters, ghosts, and all things spooky, and it's still his favorite genre today.

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