hunt Yes – exciting or disappointing, depending on your preference – not a gritty, character-based reboot Mission impossible franchise, but a political thriller from South Korea, by squid game Breakout star Lee Jung-jae is making his directorial debut.the fact is hunt Apparently a debut feature, which means all the messy, bumpy execution, partially offset by the film’s sheer energy and its punch budget, which helps turn the whole exercise into a thumping gunshot and a blast.
at the beginning hunt, a series of scathing title cards and laughably expansive presentation scenes give us a wealth of information about the political situation the film is embedded in: namely, the peak of South Korea’s military dictatorship in the 1980s, as the country sought a path to Western growth. During these opening vignettes, the cameras are busy, scouring the crowd, moving around, and generally giving a sense of urgency as intelligence officers monitor student demonstrations that have the potential to turn violent – and it does , suddenly, almost comically, pushes the film into completely different territory, and then it turns into a straightforward and essentially apolitical shooter. Here, the violence hits eleven, and Lee Jung-jae indulges in some blockbuster that he’s clearly more interested in, and thus gets more budget than all things political intrigue. This preview sequence gives the scale of the entire movie, and at times it seems to forget its intentions, or get weirdly tired of its own narrative rhythm, then summon some energy for the crunching fist fight on the stairs.
As for the story itself: Jung-jae directs and plays one of the two main characters, playing an intelligence officer, Park Byung-ho, whose investigation into the existence of a mole within the organization brings him together with Kim Jong-do (Jung Woo-sung), another spy chief. Park and Kim are not well portrayed, and both actors bring a harsh, cold uncompromising attitude to their characters. In fact, the animosity, and then the collaboration, between the two mismatched police characters is reminiscent of the bruising dynamic between Guy Pearce and Russell Crowe in an unflattering way. Los Angeles Confidential: In that film, both characters can push each other, complement each other, and grow together – and in hunt, the protagonists just get a series of bloody encounters, a big old dust in the corridors of power, and a final scene where the world explodes around them. That’s fine for delivering a messy action car, but it starts to fade a bit around 80 minutes, when the movie is still stubbornly but half-heartedly trying to get you interested in some emotional subplots.
“That’s fine for delivering a messy action car, but it starts to fade a bit around 80 minutes, when the movie is still stubbornly but half-heartedly trying to get you interested in some emotional subplots.“
hunt It’s quite enjoyable in its action sequences: the big gunfight at the dry cleaners; the smaller shootout in the villain’s secret dig-slash torture scene; a car chase followed by a medium shootout; the big one during the president’s official visit Scale shootout. Here, while editing needs to be sorted out and action-movie cliches abound, Lee Jung-jae evokes a verve that’s lacking elsewhere.this is visible huntpure bloodlust. While the film’s fights are somewhat stylized according to genre codes, we can still hear its human toll: rough shattering of bones, blood on shirt collars, vicious jabs poking boots on fast-changing faces. The film has a staggering number of machine guns, along with grenades, pistols, and all kinds of explosives, which translates to a pretty iconic number by the time the film is done. sometimes, huntThe extreme violence (and a lot of torture!) has the potential to become comical or cartoony: in this respect it is sometimes reminiscent of a simulated car chase bruce brothers This went on for so long that one of the main characters started falling asleep. These bloodthirsty touches also detract from the film’s storyline, love and betrayal and so on, never the slightest chance to go home.
Lee Jung Jae, who co-wrote the script based on directing and acting, does show some promise in this film, which can be quite lively from a formal standpoint: atmospheric lighting, a beautiful soundtrack, and a decent eye. Composition helps keep the show on track, even as the film winds its way to the finale with several maddeningly false endings. hunt Score when it shows focus rather than trying to do too much at once: it’s the sort of finishing that an eagle-eyed producer can hope to bring to the cast-director’s follow-up adventure. Maybe the next one doesn’t need to measure the temperature of a country, dissect masculinity, tell a twisty detective story and stage a couple of violent episodes, but can instead set its sights on just offering some murders that are completely weightless, easily immune to any The meaning of human bondage.
