If it's blood you're thirsting for — in buckets and fountains and passageways decorated with the stuff as if Jason Voorhees were possessed by Jackson Pollock — your ship has come in. The seas may be mostly calm, but the Korean action-slash-monster movie "Project Wolf Hunting" (emphasis on the slash) finds waters choppy enough for your mayhem needs.
The setup is "Con Air" on a boat: A whole lotta Korean criminals have been rounded up in the Philippines and are loaded onto a cargo ship back to Korea. One of the cops on board is the grizzled veteran captain; another is a young female officer (played by Jung So-min) — no more characterization granted than that. One of the crooks is the baddest of the bad (Seo In-guk; thou shalt know him by his tattoos); another is a conspicuously handsome young man (Jang Dong-yoon), an expressionless one, at that.
Of course the prisoners will get loose, that's a given, and then the kill-fest will begin in earnest. The twist is there's something else on board that will pose a bigger, gorier, grislier problem than even a ship full of murderers with insufficient adult supervision. Let's just say, cinematically, it's a much more efficient violence-delivery device than even this horde of homicide-loving yahoos.
The plot doesn't make a heck of a lot of sense, but does it matter? If you're on this cruise, you're here for the bruises (and copious arterial sprays). One wishes the action were more thought through — there are many, many instances of armed killers and cops just standing there and watching as their friends get their skulls smashed in — and a hint of characterization would have helped. No moment on this anything-but-love boat has the impact of, say, the seasickness sequence of "Triangle of Sadness," but slaughter stans will get their butchery bellyfuls.
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'PROJECT WOLF HUNTING'
(In Korean with English subtitles)
No MPAA rating
Running time: 2:02
How to watch: Now in theaters
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