Review: ‘Project Wolf Hunting’ brings buckets of blood

If you thirst for blood — in buckets and fountains and hallways decorated with the stuff like Jason Voorhees was possessed by Jackson Pollock — your ship has arrived. The seas may be calm for the most part, but Korean action-slash-monster film Project Wolf Hunting (focus on the slash) finds water choppy enough for your mayhem needs.

The setup is “Con Air” on a boat: A whole bunch of Korean criminals were rounded up in the Philippines and loaded onto a cargo ship back to Korea. One of the cops on board is the grizzled veteran captain; another is a young officer (played by Jung So-min) – no more characterization is allowed. One of the crooks is the baddest of bad guys (Seo In-guk; you’ll recognize him by his tattoos); another is a strikingly handsome young man (Jang Dong-yoon), an expressionless one at that.

Of course, the prisoners are released, that’s a given, and then the kill-fest begins in earnest. The twist is that there’s something else on board that’s going to pose a bigger, bloodier, and grislier problem than even a shipful of killers with insufficient adult supervision. Let’s just say, cinematically it’s a far more efficient means of conveying violence than even this horde of murder-loving Yahoos.

The plot doesn’t make much sense, but does it matter? If you’re on this cruise, you’re here for the bruises (and copious amounts of arterial splatter). One wishes the plot had been more well thought out – there are many, many instances of gunmen and cops just standing there and watching their friends get their skulls bashed in – and a touch of characterization would have helped. No moment on this all-love boat has the impact of, say, the seasickness sequence from Triangle of Sadness, but butcher Stans will get sick of their butchery.