Project Wolf Hunting Review

4 star brutal, relentless and bloody horror on the high sea.

Project Wolf Hunting is a 2022 South Korean action horror, written and directed by Hongsun Kim (Traffickers, The Chase).

Following it’s world debut at TIFF Midnight Madness in 2022, it is presented here in South Korean with English subtitles, streaming exclusively on the Icon Film Channel, ahead of it’s UK cinema release on 10th March 2023.

“If you want a safe return to the cherished motherland, don’t f***ing try anything funny, let’s all go quietly. Remember, there’s nowhere to run.”

In 2016, following cooperation between South Korea and the Phillipines on police investigations, an agreement was reached. A year later, the first extraditees arrived. Unfortunately, one of their victims was waiting with a suicide bomb and civilians and police operatives alike were killed.

In 2022, another attempt is being made. This time, the prisoners are to be transported from Manila to Busan via the 58,000 ton frieghter “Frontier Titan”. This cargo ship is to be policed by twenty experienced officers for the three day journey. Among the inmates are two red notice fugitives, Park Jong-Doo (Seo In-Guk – Pipeline) and Lee Do-Il (Dong-Yoon Jang – Beautiful Days) and charged with keeping control of the situation is Kim Gyoo-Tae (Moon-Sung Jung – The Cursed).

Keeping an eye on matters from land is the Busan Vessel Traffic Service Centre, taken over by head of Special Operations, Oh Dae-Woong (Dong-Il Sung – Somehow Family), in charge of what he calls “Project Wolf Hunting.”

Of course, all is not as it seems and soon everything begins to go wrong for our law enforcement officers. As the ship descends into bloody chaos, they begin to suspect there may be something even more dangerous abourd than the criminals.

“Lee Do-il. He looks sweet but is a stone cold killer.”

Project Wolf Hunting is a very enjoyable watch, but be warned it pulls no punches and is graphically and brutally violent right from the start. The action sequences are amazing, featuring vast quantities of blood (I suspect in some cases rather more than is actually present in an average human body).

It’s an interesting story, which seems at the start to be just an escaped prisoner kind of scenario, and then you get about half way through and everything goes gloriously and gorily sci-fi, a very nice surprise.

It’s well written and directed and features several extremely surprising twists which will keep you on the edge of your seat right to the end of the film. It looks little long at just over two hours, but it doesn’t feel too long at all, they need the time to fit the story in.

If you’re a fan of the genre, this one is well worth a watch.

“My fortune said I wouldn’t die abroad this year.”