Project Wolf Hunting

Directed by Kim Hongsun, Project Wolf Hunting details the chaos that unfolds aboard an enormous tanker that’s being used to shuttle a number of violent criminals from the Philippines to South Korea. Filmmaker Kim, armed with his own screenplay, delivers an awkwardly-paced yet periodically thrilling endeavor that benefits from its large assortment of exceedingly (and perhaps excessively) violent interludes, as Kim has infused such moments with an unhinged, thoroughly over-the-top sensibility that tends to compensate for the picture’s myriad of less-than-impressive attributes – including a paucity of wholeheartedly compelling characters and a two+ hour running time that feels at least 45 minutes too long. The latter remains an ongoing problem within the mostly momentum-free proceedings, as Kim punctuates the overstuffed narrative with a whole host of entirely needless elements, including a couple of flashbacks that could and should have been jettisoned, that ultimately add nothing to the final product (ie the picture is in dire need of serious streamlining). By the time the fairly anticlimactic conclusion rolls around, Project Wolf Hunting has cemented its place as a decent-enough endeavor that would hardly be worth mentioning were it not for its often breathtakingly brutal atmosphere (ie the movie rivals Peter Jackson’s Dead Alive in terms of its blood and guts).

**1/2 out of ****