hunt 2022 korean movie review

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"Squid Game" Emmy winner Lee Jung-jae stars and directs this week's explosive blockbuster "Hunt," a film about double and triple crosses in a spy game between North and South Korea in the 1980s. About halfway through Lee's film, I realized I had completely lost the thread of who was a good guy and who was a bad guy, but I think that's intentional. This film is about men in well-tailored suits who must constantly determine if the armed fellow next to them is on their side or possibly fighting for the enemy. While some of the action sequences are well-staged, particularly the final explosive one, the convoluted screenplay by Jo Seung-Hee collapses under the weight of so much deception. "Hunt" has some excellent bang-bang escapism, but it's ultimately too shallow to recommend.

Lee plays Park Pyong-ho, a South Korean officer who is seen foiling an assassination attempt in the explosive opening scene, but his fellow officer Kim Jung-do (Jung Woo-sung) shoots the suspect, meaning they can't get to the bottom of the plot. Was this intentional? Is he hiding something the gunman might have revealed? "Hunt" sets up early on that there's a North Korean mole in the operation and wants us to keep guessing if it's Pyong-ho or Jung-do behind the espionage as the two men with a shared violent past also become increasingly suspicious of one another.

That's about it, but it leads to dozens of sequences of shifting loyalties, usually intercut with violent action. Accusations—explosions—accusations—gunfire—accusations ... you get the idea. It all gets a little exhausting, and Lee's non-stop hyperactive cutting and moving camera don't help. He shoots many of the dialogue-driven scenes with the same frantic feeling as the action. This is the twisting narrative of something like " Infernal Affairs " (which was remade as " The Departed ") but without the craft and ten times the chaos. It becomes an increasingly difficult film to care about narratively, and Lee's admittedly ambitious eye for action doesn't compensate.

There are reasons to hope Lee's sophomore effort might be stronger. He's clearly a strong director of performers, as Jung is particularly good here—I found his shifting loyalty and presence more interesting than Lee's. And, again, when bullets start to fly, the film sometimes attains a gritty action nihilism like the films from the era in which it takes place. There's a harsh realism to some of the action scenes as bodies fly, and sets get ripped apart by bullets. It's not that modern, overly stylized action aesthetic that was spawned by so many "John Wick" imitators as much as something that feels like it's dangerously unfolding in front of you.

The problem is that it's impossible to even keep track of who's getting shot. When all the bodies have fallen, there are a couple of memorable scenes in "Hunt"—a sequence with a potential defector is expertly assembled, and the final major one is a beauty—but you'll have trouble remembering much of the plot. Of course, that's presuming you could follow it in the first place.

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Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

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Film Credits

Hunt (2022)

131 minutes

Lee Jung-jae as Park Pyung-ho

Jung Woo-Sung as Kim Jung-do

Jeon Hye-Jin as Bang Ju-kyung

Heo Sung-tae as Jang Chul-sung

Go Youn-jung as Jo Yoo-jung

Kim Jong-soo as Director Ahn

Jeong Man-sik as Yang Bo-sung

• Lee Jung-jae
• Jo Seung-hee

Cinematographer

• Kim Sang-bum
• Cho Young-wuk

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What to Know

Although it frequently forsakes action in favor of a needlessly knotty narrative, Hunt has enough thrills to satisfy more forgiving espionage fans.

Critics Reviews

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Lee Jung-jae

Park Pyong-ho

Jung Woo-sung

Kim Jung-do

Jeon Hye-jin

Heo Sung-tae

Go Yoon-jung

‘Hunt’ Review: Trust No One in This Unpredictable Korean Spy-vs.-Spy Game

Onetime Korean heartthrob and 'Squid Game' star Lee Jung-jae shores up his newfound genre status by helming this over-the-top conspiracy thriller.

By Peter Debruge

Peter Debruge

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Audiences needn’t know much about South Korean history to appreciate what follows, other than to trust that the country’s power shifts tend to be shocking and soap-operatic when they come, which helps to justify the confusing snare of double- and triple-crosses ahead. Things start conventionally enough, as a group of highly trained operatives make a first attempt at the Korean president’s life during a visit to Washington, D.C., but by the end, they have escalated to such a degree that pretty much anyone is capable of anything.

Like Korea’s answer to playbook-be-damned “24” hero Jack Bauer, these two top spies use torture, murder and more as tools of the trade. Early on, a North Korean asylum seeker warns that there’s a mole in the KCIA, code name “Donglim,” leading each agent to suspect the other. Whoever he is, this traitor’s presence puts key operations in serious jeopardy: A dozen agents are executed in a deadly ambush, while plans to extract the defector backfire spectacularly, resulting in a visceral car chase/shootout.

The cat-and-mouse dynamics of “Hunt” aren’t nearly as satisfying as its action set-pieces, which Lee and his team pull off with considerable skill. The action is slick and immediate without feeling overly stylized. Eschewing slo-mo and show-offy choreography in favor of more immersive eyewitness blocking, Lee channels American maestro Michael Mann, resulting in gun battles where tough guys stride into danger without so much as flinching while high-caliber bullets slam through steel around them.

Of the two agents, Lee is the more likable, giving off classic Jimmy Stewart vibes (from any of the Hitchcock films in which he plays the falsely accused fall guy) as Kim starts to question whether he could be the mole. The eventual reveal of Donglim’s identity isn’t nearly as straightforward as anyone might have expected, though saying more might spoil the surprise of a finale that spins everyone’s motives so far around, even the American agent (Derek Chouinard) keeping tabs from the sidelines has been implicated in the madness. The last few scenes are so ludicrous as to be laughable, but that doesn’t sabotage the fun, allowing Lee to entertain, even as “Hunt” cynically makes its case that in Korea, there can be no such thing as a peaceful revolution, nor a clean transfer of power.

Reviewed at CAA, Los Angeles, May 10, 2022. In Cannes Film Festival (Midnight Screenings). Running time: 131 MIN.

• Production: (S. Korea) A Megabox Joongang Plus M presentation of an Artist Studio, Sanai Pictures production. (World sales: Megabox Joongang Plus M, Seoul.) Producers:
• Crew: Director: Lee Jung-Jae. Screenplay: Lee Jung-Jae, Jo Seung-Hee. Camera:
• With: Lee Jung-Jae, Jung Woo-Sung, Jeon Hye-Jin, Heo Sung-Tae, Go Youn-Jung, Kim Jong-Soo, Jun Man-Sik.

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‘Hunt’ Review: Spy vs. Spy vs. Subplots

A dense espionage narrative proves all too tangled in this directorial debut from the South Korean actor Lee Jung-jae.

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By Robert Daniels

“Hunt,” the feature directorial debut of the South Korean actor Lee Jung-jae ( a star of “Squid Game” ), is a tangled espionage thriller that recalls the suspenseful works of the British novelist John le Carré.

Set during the early 1980s, the film, dominated by flashbacks, features double crosses, subterfuge, geopolitical angst and professional regret as the backdrop to an intense pursuit by two competing intelligence agents — Park Pyong-ho (Lee) and Kim Jung-do (Jung Woo-sung) — to uncover a North Korean mole embedded in their agency who intends to assassinate South Korea’s president.

A dense narrative bursting with elaborate red herrings proves an unmanageable mess as the film wears on. Kim and Park accuse each other of being the spy; student protests explode; missions misfire; anonymous soldiers eliminate key witnesses; and Kim uses an allegation of treason against Park’s adoptive daughter (Go Yoon-jung) as blackmail. All of this is barely held together by vigorous shootouts littered throughout. Lee’s overt visual homages to Alfonso Cuarón’s “Roma” and Ben Affleck’s “Argo,” his keen eye for period detail, the rising body count and the moral quandary that arises when Park and Kim question their loyalty to their country do little to reclaim one’s interest.

A convoluted conclusion, begot by an unconvincing change of heart, obliterates any chance of “Hunt” offering the clarity it needs to be entertaining. Instead, Lee’s directorial effort wanders toward something unmemorable.

Hunt Not rated. In Korean, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 11 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on Amazon , Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators.

Screen Rant

Hunt review: a pulse-raising actioner with ample thrills & a messy script.

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Hot off the heels of his Emmy-winning performance in the hit Netflix series Squid Game , Lee Jung-jae reminds audiences that he is not some new hot commodity out of South Korea, but he is a bona fide mega-star that Western audiences are lucky to be blessed with. His latest project showcases his boundless skills as he directs, writes, produces, and stars in Hunt , a Cold War-era espionage thriller set in South Korea.

Hunt , Lee's directorial debut, follows two agents, Park Pyong-ho (Lee) and Kim Jung-do (Jung Woo-sung), from the Korean Central Intelligence Agency who must find a North Korean mole embedded deep within the agency. There is a bit of a rivalry between the two as they head up different divisions. It causes unexpected shifts in their investigation, and they naturally suspect each other. As they chase down the traitor, it becomes clear that the whole agency will be impacted and maybe even burn down with them.

Related: Squid Game's Lee Jung-Jae’s 8 Best Movies, Ranked by IMDb

This action thriller is not short on intrigue, drama and action, but the main hook is the acting. As always, Lee impresses with a committed performance and an alluring aura that pulls viewers in easily. His co-star, Jung Woo-sung, is equally dynamic, matching Lee's intensity and fire. The two play off each other very well, complementing one another's distinct character traits, creating the sense that their characters are not the same kind of agent. Their performances ground this intense and, at times, muddled action-thriller.

Lee has certainly learned a lot from his many years as an actor. His camera skills are smooth, efficient, and effective. He adapts to the needs of each scene to increase the intensity and drama at any given moment. His patience in his style is admirable; and even more admirable is his ability to overcome an overcooked screenplay (that he co-wrote). The movie never loses momentum, even when it must resist the urge to be an actioner and settle into the mystery. There is a story to be told, and it cannot be told with guns and car chases alone, though Lee at least tries.

As impressive as Lee's directing is, and he commits to finding a balance in this story, it is hard to say that he is successful. The story suffers a bit due to pacing, but the script is also deficient. It is convoluted in the worst possible ways. Concealing the identity of the traitor and the truth of the whole narrative is key to a successful mystery thriller, but the result is laughable, and that should not be the goal. Lee's hyper-intense approach to capturing the story luckily shifts attention away from the lacking script.

Whether the script intended it or not, Hunt is a cynical and nihilistic examination of the tough road to peace. While peace is the “goal” for the agency, there is a sense of feeling utterly helpless to impending doom. Whether it frustrates the characters or not, they contribute to the mayhem. It’s a sharp take on South Korean-North Korean relations, but that unpleasant, dangerous atmosphere drives the movie from the very first explosive action scene. The script fails to stand on its own, so it is up to Lee to craft a compelling narrative through his directing and performance. With some fine-tuning, the frantic, chaotic nature of the stylized action would be grounded by incisive and poignant writing.

Despite troubles from the page, Hunt excels as a pulse-raising actioner. It exists to excite audiences through its sheer audacity. Shallow as it may be, it is entertaining. Whatever Lee Jung-jae decides to pursue as his next feature, with a solid script, a masterpiece is bound to be made.

Next: Decibel Review: Lee Jongsuk & Cha Eunwoo Shine In Taut Action Thriller

Hunt opened in theaters and is available on VOD Friday, December 2. It is 131 minutes long and not rated.

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‘hunt’ (‘heonteu’): film review | cannes 2022.

‘Squid Game’ star Lee Jung-jae makes his directing debut on this 1980s-set espionage thriller, co-starring with Jung Woo-sung as intelligence agents trying to smoke out a North Korean mole.

By David Rooney

David Rooney

Chief Film Critic

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Set during the instability of South Korea in the 1980s under an authoritarian government, with a background of student protesters pushing for Democracy as North Korea angles to assume national control via forced reunification, Hunt has ample political texture. It’s also not short on car chases, firefights, hand-to-hand clashes, explosions and cellphones the size of house bricks. What this twisty espionage thriller, the directing debut of Squid Game star Lee Jung-jae , doesn’t have enough of is character depth or storytelling coherence. That undercuts its effectiveness as action entertainment, a premiere Midnight slot in Cannes notwithstanding.

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Charismatic leads and some intense set-pieces keep you watching, but this is an increasingly frustrating movie that loses its way amid a dense thicket of plot complications, double-dealings, counterplans and surprise revelations, without laying the necessary groundwork to help you keep track of what’s going on. Or to care. Lee shows no lack of ambition in his move behind the camera, but this type of psychologically complex, high-speed genre intrigue requires tighter narrative control. The characters are so veiled in secrecy and deception that their motivations, along with their true allegiances, too often remain opaque.

Venue : Cannes Film Festival (Out of Competition) Cast : Lee Jung-jae, Jung Woo-sung, Jeon Hye-jin, Heo Sung-tae, Go Youn-jung, Kim Jong-soo, Jung Man-sik Director : Lee Jung-jae Screenwriters : Lee Jung-jae, Jo Seung-hee

Opening in Washington, D.C., the film swiftly sets up its key adversaries when Park Pyong-ho (Lee) and Kim Jung-do (Jung Woo-sung), respectively foreign and domestic unit chiefs of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency, are thrust into action to foil snipers aiming to assassinate the South Korean president during a State visit. Park is briefly taken hostage but narrowly escapes by killing the assailant and angering Kim, who wanted the man brought in alive for interrogation.

The fallout from that incident leaves them with the dangling question of a leak within the organization, and the paranoia of finding a North Korean mole, known as Donglin, in the KCIA. While Park is an agency veteran of 12 years, Kim is new to the field, coming from a Korean Army background, which adds to their mutual distrust. Park’s distaste for his colleague’s use of brutal torture in his interrogation methods only feeds the initially unspoken animosity between them.

A botched special ops mission and the exposure of a corrupt KCIA director heighten the urgency of uncovering the threat to national security, while Park’s obscure personal ties to Yoo-jung (Go Youn-jung), a college student implicated with protestors who is cagey about her past, also casts him in a suspicious light with Kim. When the KCIA appoints another military man as director, Ahn (Kim Jong-soo), he pits the two unit chiefs against one another, putting Kim in charge of an internal witch hunt that will have multiple casualties. But it’s Park’s female deputy and skilled data analyst, Agent Ju-kyung (Jeon Hye-jin), who uncovers a shocking truth that radically shifts the perspective at great personal cost.

Meanwhile, a security breach puts a Korean-Japanese summit meeting in jeopardy and the plot to eliminate the president picks up new momentum with a planned visit to Bangkok. It’s no great surprise when the involvement of the American CIA comes to light. Lee and his stunt coordinator Heo Myeong-heang stage the Thailand assault like an explosive Western showdown, with a military parade on the grounds in front of a grand embassy building that spirals into a blood-drenched shootout.

Lee Mo-gae’s sharp cinematography, Kim Sang-bum’s propulsive edit and a suspenseful score by Cho Young-wuk bring technical polish to Hunt . But despite the compelling screen presences of the two leads, the movie never pauses long enough to dig into the professional rivalry between Park and Kim, their conflicting ideologies or their strategic psychological warfare. Its dynamic surges of violence are often impressive on a scene-by-scene basis, but ultimately, it all unfolds at a muddled distance.

Full credits

Venue: Cannes Film Festival (Out of Competition) Production companies: Artist Studio, Sanai Pictures Cast: Lee Jung-jae, Jung Woo-sung, Jeon Hye-jin, Heo Sung-tae, Go Youn-jung, Kim Jong-soo, Jung Man-sik Director: Lee Jung-jae Screenwriters: Lee Jung-jae, Jo Seung-hee Producers: Han Jae-duk, Lee Jung-jae Executive producers: Jeongin Hong, Jinsun Kim Director of photography: Lee Mo-gae Production designer: Park Il-hyun Costume designers: Cho Sang-kyung, Choi Yoon-sun Music: Cho Young-wuk Editor: Kim Sang-bum Sound designer: Jung Gun Visual effects supervisors: Chang Ick-jea, Kim Tae-eui Sales: Megabox Plus M

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Review: lee jung-jae’s spy thriller “hunt” paints familiar picture of 80’s korean politics.

“Squid Game” star Lee Jung-jae’s directorial debut “Hunt” offers action-packed rehash of established historical tropes from South Korea’s authoritarian period.

By Anthony Kao , 28 Nov 22 06:11 GMT

A year after rocketing to global fame with Squid Game , Korean actor Lee Jung-jae re-emerged on the global cinematic scene with his directorial debut, Hunt . This espionage thriller screened at 2022’s Cannes and Toronto International Film Festivals, and is one of this year’s top-grossing movies at South Korea’s domestic box office. However, critical reception to the movie was tepid among non-Korean critics. Many found the movie’s historical context too inaccessible, so much so that Lee Jung-jae slightly edited the movie for further international screenings in response.

From the perspective of someone who does have knowledge about South Korea’s authoritarian period though, Hunt feels quite familiar–too familiar, in fact. While it’s action-packed and cinematographically competent, the film is like a “greatest hits” compilation of historical tropes from 1980’s South Korea, one that fails to innovate upon the era’s historiography. How and why is this the case, and what does this bode for South Korean cinema?

Enemies Foreign and Domestic

Hunt opens in Washington DC, where its two protagonists are trying to protect South Korea’s President (unabashedly modeled after military dictator Chun Doo-hwan ) on an overseas tour. Park Pyong-ho (Lee Jung-jae) and Kim Jung-do (Jung Woo-sung) head the Korean Central Intelligence Agency’s (KCIA) foreign and domestic units, respectively. Despite ostensibly serving the same master, they’re rivals—each with their own fiefdoms of spies.

When an assasination attempt disrupts the President’s tour, the fragile balance between Park and Kim begins to unravel. The KCIA realizes there’s a mole named “Donglim” in their midst, and the two men begin hunting for the mole in each others’ turf. A cat-and-mouse game replete with gunfights, torture, secret codes, and car chases ensues, bumping along a bevy of plot twists staged with slick visual form.

Referencing the Known

If you’re acquainted with South Korean history and political cinema , this plot progression becomes a walk down memory lane. With its Washington DC beginnings, Hunt evokes 2020’s The Man Standing Next , another KCIA thriller which also leaned into Cold War ROK-US relations as a subplot. The film then showcases American complicity with South Korea’s dictatorship through CIA agents plotting to prop up President Chun, a Korean leftist refrain that’s been explored across numerous dramas and movies across the past few decades. Torture scenes and guilt over the 1980 Gwangju Massacre come up next, evoking movies like National Security and Peppermint Candy . Even killing President Chun in the name of democracy and justice is well-tread ground, as seen through the 2012 movie 26 Years .

History buffs may also notice how Hunt references numerous real events from multiple years across the early 80’s, beyond the Gwangju Massacre. There’s a shoutout to the 1983 defection of North Korean MiG-19 pilot Lee Ung-pyeong (played with gusto by Hwang Jung-min), and a reimagining of the 1983 Rangoon Bombing in which North Korean agents plotted to assassinate Chun Doo-hwan. The film also offers other easter eggs that non-Korean audiences might miss. For instance, Park Pyong-ho and Lee Jung-do’s given names are rough homonyms for “peace” and “justice”, respectively, which bear relevance later in the movie. Besides some implications around North Koreans meddling with South Korea’s democratization movements ( a common right-wing refrain that doesn’t usually appear in left-leaning Korean cinema) though, Hunt breaks absolutely no new ground in its retelling of history.

Political K-Movie Comfort Food

With all these tropes and references, Hunt becomes comfort food for history junkies and Korean politics nerds. Alas, this isn’t necessarily healthy. Comfort food might prove inaccessible to those lacking requisite memory and cultural context, and too much comfort food can leave one in a complacent stupor.

Since the country democratized in the early 1990’s, South Korea has been able to make numerous films that actually have a societal impact, and thus live on in the national (and international) consciousness, because they break new ground when it comes to viewing the recent past. For example, 2005’s The President ’s Last Bang sparked lawsuits over its depiction of former President Park Chung-hee, whilst 2017’s A Taxi Driver offered a fresh humanistic view on the Gwangju Massacre and led to the rediscovery of its previously anonymous titular character.

While Hunt is a competent piece of entertainment, it’s hard to see it making the same kind of waves in civic discourse. This isn’t exclusive to Hunt though; the past three years haven’t seen any Korean political movies on the order of something like A Taxi Driver . Perhaps that’s due in part to COVID-19’s dampening effect on Korean cinematic screenings, or maybe Korean filmmakers have simply exhausted 1980’s democratization and should migrate to less-trod pastures. Whatever the reason, anybody who values impactful Korean political films should hope that productions more innovative than Hunt are waiting in the wings.

Hunt (Korean: 헌트) —South Korea. Dialog in Korean. Directed by Lee Jung-jae. First screened May 19, 2022 at the Cannes Film Festival. Running time 2hr 11min. Starring Lee Jung-jae, Jung woo-sung, Jeon Hye-jin.

Hunt will have its North American release starting December 2, 2022.

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‘Hunt’ Review: ‘Squid Game’ Star Lee Jung-jae Directs a Wildly Convoluted Korean Spy Thriller

David ehrlich.

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Editor’s note: This review was originally published at the 2022 Cannes  Film Festival. Magnet releases the film in theaters and on VOD on Friday, December 2.

An energetic yet hopelessly convoluted espionage thriller that doesn’t tell a story so much as it chronically bumps into one, “Hunt” — the directorial debut of “Squid Game” star Lee Jung-jae , who also co-wrote the script and plays the lead role — begins with a premise so primed for spy-vs-spy mind games that you can almost hear John le Carré licking his lips from beyond the grave.

It’s the early 1980s, North and South Korea are locked in a paranoia-driven cold war, and the Gwangju Uprising (during which hundreds, if not thousands, of South Korean students were killed while demonstrating against martial law) is still fresh in everyone’s minds. In fact, the massacre has left such a stain on the nation’s psyche that it even seeps into the Tarantino-esque alternate history that Lee spins here, providing some extra sogginess at the bottom of a self-serious popcorn movie in which the South Korean president is only a symbolic representation of the real Chun Doo-hwan.

Alarmed by the unrest and further agitated by rumors of a legendary North Korean mole within his ranks, the new director of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency secretly orders the chiefs of his foreign and domestic units to investigate each other and uncover the truth by any means necessary. Chaos reigns. And I mean chaos . For starters, the heroic Pyong-ho (a highly watchable Lee) and his square-jawed and studious counterpart Jung-do (Jung Woo-sung) aren’t merely co-workers, they’re also kind of pals. Oh, and — small note, here — one of them served as the other’s personal interrogator/torturer after the last regime change. Just another day at the office when you work for the bureau whose previous director, in real life, assassinated the president in the middle of a dinner party.

As if that weren’t enough to sustain 131 minutes of triple-crosses, ninth-dimensional chess, and betrayals so complicated that the movie eventually starts to feel like it’s chasing its own tail (by design, to a certain degree), Lee and his co-writer Jo Seung-hee don’t waste any time adding some more pieces to the puzzle. A sullen college student named Yoo-jung (Go Youn-jung) is the first person added to the mix, though the nature of her relationship to the much older Pyong-ho won’t be revealed for some time. Next, a mission to intercept a North Korean defector off the streets of Tokyo crumbles into a blisteringly intense shoot-out after someone blows the KCIA’s cover (“Train to Busan” stunt coordinator Heo Myeong-Haeng is credited with directing the action sequences, which are visceral and propulsive in a way that American crime sagas almost never are this side of “Heat”). And then, just when you think you’ve got a handle on things, a well-informed North Korean soldier lands his fighter plane in the middle of Seoul and promises to turn the whole investigation upside down.

If it sounds like I’m just reiterating the plot, that’s only because “Hunt” doesn’t leave much oxygen for anything else. For all of its committed performances (gritted teeth and flop sweat for everyone!), period-immaculate set design, and layered moral implications — particularly when Pyung-ho and Jung-do begin to question the greater value of spycraft and the secret-keeping on which it depends — Lee’s debut is little more than a chattering Pez dispenser full of plot twists. And plot twists within plot twists. And plot twists within plot twists within flashbacks that have their own plot twists. Every new scene contains its own board-resetting twist, those scenes careening into each other in such choppy fashion that it starts to feel as if the film is trying to wear you down in order to extract some precious North Korean intel.

This relentless info dump — this pointillistic bludgeoning of story beats — does occasionally cohere into something greater than the sum of its parts. In particular, it coheres into a huge L for the deep state. Watching these characters snap at their own reflections creates a gradual sense of unsustainability that Lee is able to parlay into a bitter commentary on the torrents of white noise and distrust that despotic governments create in order to maintain their power. At a certain point, you begin to realize that literally every member of the country’s intelligence department could be a double agent, and none of them would know.

A handful of egregiously clumsy beats (including a slow clap and a bonafide “are we the baddies?” speech from one of the lead spies) aren’t distracting enough to overwhelm from the more effective subplots and character arcs; a sequence in which Pyung-ho unseats a superior is a telling (and satisfying) indication of his character’s determination, and a thread involving his ultra-loyal subordinate (“The Merciless” actress Jeon Hye-jin) pays off with a harrowing scene that suggests how effective this movie could have been with a greater sense of clarity.

If only the film itself were afforded such a satisfying climax, instead of ending with just one last twist — a final reversal so ridiculous that it left me feeling silly for trying to follow the plot until that point. You’ll probably have a better time if you stop trying to keep up after the first 30 minutes and just let yourself get caught in the web. Or maybe, and I’m not pointing fingers here, you understand exactly what’s happening in this story because you’re an undercover CIA agent who’s been working both sides the whole time! Stranger things have happened, and by the time “Hunt” finally catches its prey, I assure you that they will.

“Hunt” premiered at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival. 

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Hunt review: Lee Jung-jae plays another deadly game

The squid game star makes his film directing debut with a tantalizing, '80s-set espionage thriller for netflix.

Lee Jung-jae follows up his Emmy-winning turn in Squid Game with the ambitious espionage thriller Hunt , a film set in South Korea during the height of the Cold War. Lee stars in, directs, co-writes, and co-produces this taut, extravagant, and technically proficient effort, which comes off more as an auspicious filmmaking debut than a vanity project, one that stacks up favorably with most American spy thrillers.

Dangling the caveat of its fictional nature upfront, the film draws liberally from the political intrigue and instability of South Korea’s Fifth Republic under Chun Doo-hwan’s brutal military dictatorship. Though tensions persist between the two Koreas four decades later, the film’s 1980s universe is unrecognizable from the candy-colored land of K-pop today.

Before its title even emerges, Hunt thrusts viewers into an elaborate set piece complete with a messy shootout and an exploding grenade. Park Pyong-ho (Lee), chief of KCIA’s foreign unit, and Kim Jung-do (Jung Woo-sung, The Good, The Bad, The Weird ), chief of KCIA’s domestic unit, attempt to foil an assassination plot on the South Korean president during a U.S. visit. Merely two minutes in, Lee Jung-jae is already flexing by having cinematographer Lee Mo-gae line up an intricate shot of Chief Kim gradually falling out of focus as a revolving door in the background spins to reveal Chief Park standing behind, in focus. Right off the bat, the film aspires to a level of sophistication on par with Decision To Leave . Although it doesn’t fully live up to that comparison, it’s exciting to see a filmmaking novice stretch like this.

A spy is apparently among the ranks of the KCIA, leaking to North Korea the president’s international travel itineraries, plans to retrieve a defector and his family in Japan, and details of special ops. The two chiefs must investigate each other’s units to uncover the double agent. These inquiries are apparently routine, as Chief Park casually relays to Chief Kim’s wife over dinner, seemingly without an ounce of animosity, that he was tortured while questioned by her husband some years ago. But soon they’ll set about digging up dirt on one another, with each pinning the rival as the mole.

The film drops an abundance of clues that cast suspicion on both men. The premise seems derivative of doubling characters in classic Hong Kong action flicks— City On Fire , Hard Boiled , et al.—that have spawned copycats worldwide, such as Face/Off . Hunt specifically recalls Infernal Affairs and, to a much lesser extent, the 1999 South Korean film Shiri , which itself found inspiration in Hong Kong cinema.

Chief Park more closely resembles Lee’s pre-established screen persona in South Korea than Gi-hun from Squid Game , and it’s a bit surprising that the characterization of Chief Park allows little room for Lee to showcase his acting range. Most stars-turned-filmmakers have a reputation for being actors’ directors, but Lee is an exception. The film doesn’t boast any performance that’s particularly memorable, including his own and Jung’s. Heo Sung-tae, who plays the fearsome hoodlum Deok-su in Squid Game , also seems underutilized here.

The writing is where Lee’s inexperience shows. Though perhaps not readily noticeable to viewers leaning on subtitles, the screenplay by Lee and Jo Seung-hee is rather verbose. Agent Ju-kyung (Jeon Hye-jin) often walks alongside Chief Park to debrief him, in the process spelling everything out for the viewers. Espionage is inherently confusing, with myriad false identities and double-crosses. The urge to overexplain is understandable, but it’s not helpful in the midst of numerous flashbacks muddling the proceedings.

The most compelling sequence is actually without dialogue, showing a launderer transcribing Morse code stitched onto the cuffs of a dress shirt. Otherwise, production designer Park Il-hyun misses the opportunity to style an ’80s look beyond period markers like pagers and bulky cell phones.

Relentlessly grim, the movie does elicit very visceral reactions. Much like Squid Game , there are characters in Hunt we root for by default who don’t make it to the end. If Squid Game represents the ruthlessness of capitalism, Hunt reflects the human cost in the jostling for political power and dominance. Few characters are pure and not dabbling in some sinister plot, but who can blame them when the reigning regime was responsible for the Gwangju Massacre that claimed hundreds of lives? There have been several serious treatments of this tragic chapter in Korean history, so simple genre entertainment isn’t off limits. Some viewers will, unfortunately, be left with no context to recognize who or what is the real enemy.

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Film Review: Hunt (2022) by Lee Jung-jae 

Before you start chanting “Green light, red light” inspired by Lee Jung-jae 's most sucessfull screen appearance, bear in mind that his directorial debut “ Hunt ” has so many traffic lights to deal with, that you won't have time to spell ‘green' until the end. In this vertigo pacing political thriller, there are so many things happening that it is a true challenge to follow the plot. Lee's thriller bag is full of explosions, double crossing, torture and sub-plots making one's mind foggy, and despite of being thankful for plenty of action, you will wish there was a manual to adapt your simpleton expectations of a thriller to it. If there is a bit of a relief that at least some information about the political setting is given in the title cards, other elements are left to be put in their right order. Except that there are simply too many of them. With barely any time to settle in the story, you are left to speed through a twist after twist, without time to properly breathe in and out. “Hunt” is a twister that ravages through the spectator's mind.

“Hunt” screened at Cannes Film Festival

This is a film that has been polarizing film critics since its first screening in Cannes Film Festival's Midnight Section. Some praise it for its lavishly produced overload of mayhem and fantastically orchestrated action scenes, while others criticize its lack of coherence. And although there are big hickups in the storyline which suffers from overload, the lack of coherence gets compensated for, through the excessive use of well-functioning distractors such as rivalry, a deceiving female, bombs going off (although they miraculously destroy every brick, but are not doing the great job at killing), stomach-turning torture, car chase… Some of those moments are done with such an elegance, that logic becomes secondary in the process. Others are executed with an exaggerated enthusiasm, particularly towards the end, potentially causing pain in abdominal muscles.

The story is set against the backdrop of Korea's turbulent political times, four years after the assasination of President Park Chung-hee that, on one hand, ended his 16-year long dictatorship (1983), but on the other, set another kind of political turbulences to motion. The film kicks off in Washington DC, with the first assassination attempt at the new (fictive) Korean president during his official state visit, which ignites the rivalry between the leader of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency's Foreign Unit Park Pyong-ho (Lee Jung-jae) and the domestic unit chief Kim Jung-do ( Jung Woo-sung ).

One of the most incomprehensible things in the movie is the nature of the two lead characters' friendship. One moment they are best friends, although Kim was involved in a torturous interrogation of Park right after the switch in power, and the next – they are rivals again, each believing that the other one is a North Korean spy who operates under the code name “Donglin”. It gets even more complicated when it turns out that one of them is Donglin after all, but this twist would be too simple of a solution for Lee's thriller. Therefore – we've got another twist.

Another interesting dilemma regards the likeability of the film's leads. Park might have a bit of morality in his body, particularly when he starts questioning not only the agency's methods, but also his own, and he also isn't a typical hero who saves the day. At the same time, in this way, the face of the ‘spying business' is shown in its proper ugliness, and so are the mechanisms of power supported by its servants. All means are allowed to keep the governments continue their way of doing things.

“Hunt” could have profitted from a more gentle editing, and from less of the staccato pace which drains the energy from your body along its 131 minutes of runtime. Nevertheless, considering Lee Jung-jae's popularity and the fact that the film premiered in Cannes, this is the title that will most likely reach a wide international audience.

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‘Hunt’ Review: ‘Squid Game’ Actor Lee Jung-jae Brings a Dense Spy Thriller to Cannes

Lee’s directorial debut fictionalizes Korean history and throws in double agents, buried secrets and lots of broken arms

This review originally ran May 19, 2022, in conjunction with the film’s world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival.

The opening credits of “Hunt,” a South Korean thriller that premiered at the Cannes Film Festival at midnight on Thursday, offer an unusual juxtaposition. The first card in Lee Jung-jae’s film points out that this is a fictional story, and any resemblance to real people, etc. But that’s immediately followed by several cards laying out the political history of South Korea in the 1970s and ’80s: How a military coup took over in 1979 after the assassination of the president, and how the leader installed by that coup eventually claimed the presidency and began a crackdown on the press and anyone who didn’t agree with him.

So what is “Hunt?” A fictional story, or the thinly-disguised tale of what happened after this new president, who is conspicuously unnamed throughout the film, came into power?

Actually, it’s a fictional story set among real events and dealing with some real people, including one who apparently still has enough clout to keep a movie that centers on his presidency from using his real name. (By the way, the real South Korean leader who was installed by a coup in 1979 and claimed the presidency in 1980 was Chun Doo-hwon, who died at the age of 90 only six months ago.)

Those opening titles may be sending some seriously mixed messages, but it’s wise to pay attention to the history lesson they contain. “Hunt,” the directorial debut from veteran Korean actor and “Squid Game” star Lee Jung-jae, is a dense and bloody spy thriller with enough twists, turns, double agents, defectors and buried secrets to confuse even viewers who know the geopolitical players without a scorecard. For those of us who are struggling to figure out who’s who and where their sympathies lie on the fly, it can get downright impenetrable.

The key, perhaps, is not to worry about every detail, and just go along for the ride. Lee knows his way around a story with deadly consequences, and the game that’s being played in “Hunt” is a real one – which gives it more portent but also makes it a lot less fun than a pulpy TV series.

It starts with a foiled attempt to assassinate the new president, with the assassin killed as he yells, “I was just following orders!” (By the way, South Korea’s 2020 Oscar submission, “The Man Standing Next,” tells the story of the 1979 assassination of the previous president, Park Chung-hee.) The new president’s top aides come down hard on the defense services for not doing a better job of protection, with the heat turned up particularly high on a pair of Korean Central Intelligence Agency chiefs, sometime allies and sometime foes Park Pyong-ho (played by director Lee) and Kim Jung-do (Jung Woo Sung).

Clearly there’s a North Korean mole (dubbed Donglim) somewhere in the agency, and the administration is happy to use the intelligence agency to torture any and all info out of whoever who might have it. Those scenes are frequent and graphic, though “Hunt” is an action/suspense film that’s more about the conversations than the chaotic fistfights, the gun battles or the methodical breaking of dissidents’ arms, which seems to be a favored tactic.

Sleek and serious, burnished and brutal, “Hunt” is a Cold War story in which no side comes out looking good. North Korea is the canny enemy, Russia is a looming boogeyman, the South Korean presidency is in the hands of a vicious dictator and the American CIA is lurking in the shadows, always covering its tracks but ready to do anything to hurt Russian interests. This is a world in which expediency matters far more than morality, and Lee gets that across even if the rapidly expanding program of double-crosses gets more confusing by the minute.  

To his credit, Lee pulls off a suspenseful puzzle in which shifting motives and dense plots keep the audience guessing until a big and fairly ludicrous action scene at the finale. Or, to be more accurate, it’s a big and fairly ludicrous action scene that you think is the finale; in truth, “Hunt” has more endings than “The Return of the King.”

It succumbs to silliness sometimes, populated as it is by characters who take a licking and keep on ticking (or take a shooting and keep on tooting). But the real violence takes place in boardrooms and offices where Lee finds enough quiet savagery to make “Squid Game” look like child’s play.  

“Hunt” opens in US theaters and on demand Dec. 2 via Magnet Releasing.

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Story: It's the year 1983 and South Korea is a military dictatorship. The secret service KCIA is supposed to be restructured and efforts are focused on tracking down North Korean spies. In addition, the two KCIA agents Park Pyeong-ho (Lee Jung-jae) and Kim Jeong-do (Jung Woo-sung) have to perform damage control when an attempted assassination during a visit of the South Korean president in the USA almost succeeded. A lot of things are still unclear about the background, but the agents do know that secret information must have been leaked. Eventually, a high-ranking North Korean scientist comes forward asking for help to desert. In return he is willing to give away the identity of the mole in the KCIA with the codename Donglim. But he will only reveal the name after he arrives in South Korea. As a previous intel of his turns out to be true, the KCIA wants to intercept him in Japan during a trip with a North Korean delegation. But things go pretty wrong. As a result, the head of the KCIA instructs Kim and Park independently of each other to find the mole within their ranks by all means necessary. Because there is bad blood between the two agents, they start putting each other under the microscope. It turns out that neither one of them has a clean slate, but is one of them really the traitor? While the agents make life difficult for each other, they also have to prevent another planned assassination on the president.

Review: "Hunt" is the kind of espionage-action-thriller, you don't expect to see anymore these days. That's not just because the movie is set in the 80s and has a compelling political background, it's also because the action scenes are a mixture of 80s/90s HK cinema and the style of Michael Mann's "Heat". On top of that, we get a game of cat-and-mouse which is urged forward with an incredibly high pace and - not just because of its level of suspense - is reminiscent of "Infernal Affairs" . In short, with regards to what this espionage thriller aims to be, it is pretty successful and easily manages to outshine seemingly highly-polished movies like "Steel Rain 2" . The action is rough, yet neatly arranged, and one twists follows the next without giving us much time to breathe. This is the kind of cinema we didn't get to see for a long time now, and you basically don't have to say much more to clearly recommend this movie. However, this doesn't mean that the flick wouldn't have any problems.

However, you shouldn't always take the movie too seriously. There are twists at every corner, and agents turn out to be double or triple agents or even more than that. Who actually does what for what reason seems to change every minute. This makes it hard for us to warm up to either of the two main characters, because you constantly believe that one of them has to be the villain. But whoever this role actually falls to keeps changing, and even though Jung Woo-sung ( "Innocent Witness" ) apparently seems to fulfill this function, things are not as easy as they seem at first when we see his shock about the events during the Gwangju massacre in a flashback to his time as a soldier. Lee Jung-jae, who also co-wrote the script, plays with this uncertainty about who we should be rooting for. Maybe it's because of this intended ambiguity that the characters are not as fleshed out as you would have liked them to be, but the seething rivalry and the hatred between Park and Kim, two guys who in fact are not that different from each other, make them come across pretty human.

The amount of action you get here is a little surprising, especially compared to other Korean espionage-thrillers, and the cat-and-mouse game between the two characters, - who inevitably have to have some skeletons in their closets as KCIA agents, but still somehow managed to preserve something like a conscience - gives "Hunt" a special touch. Of course, you shouldn't expect any realism when it comes to the action, as agents tend to survive collapsing multistorey buildings. But it fits the atmosphere that Lee Jung-jae creates here. As mentioned before, you eventually can't take the countless twists and turns seriously anymore, but you reach a point at which you are already so invested in the movie that you don't feel like rolling your eyes. The finale is also fittingly epic, even though the ending of the showdown might be a little frustrating due to the historical backdrop. Despite some points of criticism, Lee Jung-jae still managed to turn his debut behind the camera into something impressive and he created a highly entertaining and gripping espionage-thriller with plenty of action, a movie which easily manages to outshine the majority of the competition.

Review | Cannes 2022: Hunt movie review – Korean spy thriller directed by and starring Squid Game star Lee Jung-jae proves bombastic and muddled

• This film, set in South Korea during the turbulent 1980s and ’90s, draws on real events from that time, including a presidential assassination
• The director, Squid Game star Lee Jung-jae, throws everything at this story, but it comes across as confused and messy

Serving as his own producer and top-billing star, Lee seems hell-bent in throwing all the historical references, deafening pyrotechnics or narrative twists he could get onto the screen and seeing what will stick.

Sadly, not much does. Hunt is eventually brought down by its messy storytelling, which would confuse international audiences – such as those who watched the film at the Cannes Film Festival last week – without a basic understanding of the South Korean political situation in the late 1970s and early ’80s, when the film is set.

Lee plays Park Pyung-ho, a top-ranking officer at the Korea Central Intelligence Services. After a botched attempt to bring in a defecting North Korean nuclear scientist, Park’s team is suspected of being infiltrated by a Pyongyang-sent mole. Once wielding unchecked powers within the agency, he finds himself investigated by his nemesis, the soldier-turned-spy Kim Jung-do (Jung Woo-sung)

True to the state of things in South Korea in the early ’80s, a period notorious for military dictator Chun Doo-hwan’s bloody repression of dissent and internal purges within his ranks, Park is in turn ordered to investigate Kim’s team. Both men soon charge at each other in gusto, with nearly every row between them ending up as a man-on-man fight or mass brawl.

The whole thing spirals further when it emerges there’s a bigger “hunt” going on, with the subject being the president himself. Through flashbacks and scenes depicting the people they meet on the sly while off duty, we slowly get to see both men actually following their own agendas, wishing to protect the country by saving its spirit rather than its horrendous head-of-state.

Drawn from various real-life historical incidents – such as the assassination of authoritarian ruler Park Chung-hee by his own spymaster in 1979, and attempts on Chun’s life in Burma in 1983 – Hunt is just the latest in a long line of films seeking to readdress that particular traumatic period of South Korean history. What might things have been like, Lee seems to want to ask, if people fulfilled their duty and did the right thing regardless of the perils that entails?

But what film-goers would like to ask is probably how Hunt would have turned out if Lee allowed a more qualified screenwriter to finesse a script which would make less sound and more sense. As it stands, Hunt is more a vanity project than a full-formed product from a veteran player.

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Hunt review: a confusing, but engaging spy thriller

“Lee Jung-jae announces himself as a filmmaker worth paying attention to with Hunt, a pulse-pounding spy thriller that suffers primarily from its own overly convoluted and confusing plot.”

• Lee Jung-jae's slick, engaging visual style
• Lee Jung-jae and Jung Woo Sung's layered lead performances
• A surprisingly complex, thrilling final third
• A repetitive second act
• An overly convoluted plot
• A runtime that could stand to be shorter

Hunt is, to put it mildly, an ambitious film. The new South Korean drama is a spy thriller set during the 1980s that follows the perspectives of two security officials as they try to determine the motives of the other. Structurally and narratively, the film bears more than a few similarities to similar double-agent thrillers like The Departed and Infernal Affairs . In terms of its visuals and scale, however, Hunt is built more like a blockbuster thriller in the same vein as films like The Bourne Ultimatum or Argo .

Chaos (and style) reigns

A confusing story, a promising debut.

That’s a difficult balance for any film to attempt, especially one that’s helmed — as Hunt is — by a first-time director. It’s a wonder then that Hunt works as well as it does. Under the direction of Squid Game  star Lee Jung-jae, who also appears in the film as one of its two leads, Hunt is a breakneck, unpredictable spy thriller. Over the course of its 131-minute runtime, the film’s story often wobbles and shakes beneath the weight of its own convoluted ambitions, but it never falls apart.

The fact that Hunt doesn’t ever fully crumble is a testament to not only the film’s engaging visual style, which feels heavily indebted to well-known auteurs like Paul Greengrass and Park Chan-wook, but also its relentless pace and well-choreographed set pieces. Those who make it through the film’s many unnecessary twists and confusing detours will likely find themselves taken aback by the power of Hunt ’s surprisingly satisfying final third.

Based on a screenplay by Lee and Jo Seung-Hee, Hunt opens in absolute chaos. The film’s first sequence follows Park Pyong-ho (Lee), the Foreign Unit chief of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency, and Kim Jung-do (Jung Woo-sung), the KCIA’s Domestic Unit chief, as they and their team members all scramble to stop an assassination attempt on South Korea’s president. Throughout the sequence, they race through the streets and buildings of a 1980s version of Washington D.C. that has been taken over by protests.

As far as opening sections go, Hunt ‘s quickly establishes its relentlessly fast pace, which it maintains for the entirety of its runtime, as well as its frenetic, primarily handheld visual style. Unlike many Paul Greengrass imitators, though, Lee never disregards his audience’s sense of geography or continuity merely for the sake of heightening the film’s chaotic aesthetic.

Hunt ‘s action sequences, including its opening assassination attempt in D.C., are all comprised of quick cuts and handheld shots, but it’s thanks to Kim Sang-Bum’s precise editing that they never become incoherent or mind-numbingly confusing.

The same cannot be said for Hunt ’s plot, which contains so many layers and false leads that it would be difficult to keep track of even in a film that didn’t move as fast as it does. However, Hunt moves at a shockingly brisk pace from start to finish and frequently delivers key pieces of information in such a quick, offhand manner that it can become easy to get utterly lost in the film’s web of secrets and lies. Those who pay close attention will likely be able to stick with the film, even in the moments when its story becomes too confusing and twisty for its own good, most of which come during Hunt ’s bloated second act.

In its desire to be as bombastic and action-packed as possible, Hunt ’s climactic sequence also revolves around a few too many twists. The scale of the film’s final set piece, in specific, becomes too unwieldy for its director and editor to handle, and it introduces the kind of shoddy CGI effects that are absent from the rest of Hunt . Even when it seems like Hunt is veering dangerously close to going off the rails, though, the film manages to correct itself with a final 10 minutes that are not only shocking, but also admirably acidic and bittersweet.

Hunt is further grounded by the lead performances given by Lee and Jung. As the film’s rival security chiefs, both actors are saddled with the unfortunate responsibility of having to conceal many of their characters’ motivations and suspicions while still giving performances that feel real and multidimensional. Fortunately, Lee and Jung manage to pull that tricky task off, delivering performances that feel distinctly drawn and conflicted in ways that help firmly root Hunt ’s convoluted narrative in their characters’ opposing perspectives.

Hunt ’s successes ultimately prove just how strong of a film Lee could direct should he ever manage to get his hands on a script that’s a bit tighter and cleaner. As it is, Hunt is a largely impressive directorial debut, one that establishes Lee as a surprisingly confident and technically proficient filmmaker. It’s an adrenaline-fueled slice of genre filmmaking that never quite reaches greatness, but still delivers a ride that is never anything but entertaining and enthralling.

Hunt is now playing in theaters and on demand.

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Beyond the film’s musical elements, Entergalactic is also far more adult than viewers might expect it to be. The film features several explicit sex scenes and is as preoccupied with the sexual politics of modern-day relationships as it is in, say, street art or hip-hop. While Entergalactic doesn’t totally succeed in blending all of its disparate elements together, the film’s vibrantly colorful aesthetic and infectiously romantic mood make it a surprisingly sweet, imaginative tour through a fairytale version of New York City.

From its chaotic, underwater first frame all way to its liberating, sun-soaked final shot, God’s Creatures is full of carefully composed images. There’s never a moment across the film’s modest 94-minute runtime in which it feels like co-directors Saela Davis and Anna Rose Holmer aren’t in full control of what’s happening on-screen. Throughout much of God’s Creatures’ quietly stomach-churning second act, that sense of directorial control just further heightens the tension that lurks beneath the surface of the film’s story.

In God's Creatures' third act, however, Holmer and Davis’ steady grip becomes a stranglehold, one that threatens to choke all the drama and suspense out of the story they’re attempting to tell. Moments that should come across as either powerful punches to the gut or overwhelming instances of emotional relief are so underplayed that they are robbed of much of their weight. God's Creatures, therefore, ultimately becomes an interesting case study on artistic restraint, and, specifically, how too calculated a style can, if executed incorrectly, leave a film feeling unsuitably cold.

The international breakout star of the last 12 months is Lee Jung-jae. The South Korean actor became a global sensation for his role as Seong Gi-hun in Netflix's Squid Game. For his next move, Lee will make his feature directorial debut with the espionage thriller, Hunt.

Lee stars as Park Pyong-ho, a KCIA Foreign Unit Chief who is tasked with uncovering a North Korean spy known as Donglim. Along with KCIA Domestic Unit Chief Kim Jung-do (Jung Woo-sung), he learns that the spy within their agency is leaking top-secret information that threatens national security. As they search for clues, Pyong-ho and Jung-do begin to investigate each other as they slowly learn about a plot to assassinate the South Korean president.

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Where to watch

Directed by Lee Jung-jae

Two rivals, a hidden truth.

After a high-ranking North Korean official requests asylum, KCIA Foreign Unit chief Park Pyong-ho and Domestic Unit chief Kim Jung-do are tasked with uncovering a North Korean spy, known as Donglim, who is deeply embedded within their agency. When the spy begins leaking top secret intel that could jeopardize national security, the two units are each assigned to investigate each other.

Lee Jung-jae Jung Woo-sung Jeon Hye-jin Heo Sung-tae Go Youn-jung Kim Jong-soo Jeong Man-sik Lim Hyung-kook Jung Kyung-soon Jeong Jae-seong Song Young-chang Hwang Jung-min Lee Sung-min Yoo Jae-myung Kang Kyung-hun Im Sung-jae Jeong Seong-mo Paul Battle Kim Hak-seon Oh Man-seok Andreas Fronk Lee Chae-eun Song Duk-ho Jang Seo-kyung Kim Chan-hyung Kim Hyeong-beom Yoon Jeong-sub Choi Woo-jun Park Sung-woong Show All… Jo Woo-jin Kim Nam-gil Ju Ji-hoon Cha Rae-hyung Lee Han-ju Go Seo-hee Son Kyoung-won Lee San-ho Cha Woo-jin Park Min-jeong Son Seung-beom Moon Yoo-seong Jonathan Ehren Groff Joe Nowell Josh Newton Moon Jung-dae Lee Ga-kyung Choe Min

Director Director

Lee Jung-jae

Producers Producers

Lee Jung-jae Han Jae-duk Cho Jae-sang Park Min-jeong

Writers Writers

Lee Jung-jae Jo Seung-hee Lee Young-jong Baek Gyeong-yun

Editor Editor

Kim Sang-bum

Cinematography Cinematography

Assistant directors asst. directors.

Park Sin-woong Kim Yong-tae

Executive Producers Exec. Producers

Hong Jeong-in Kim Jin-sun

Lighting Lighting

Lee Seong-hwan

Camera Operators Camera Operators

Lee Eui-tae Kim Byung-seo Lee Jong-woo

Production Design Production Design

Art direction art direction.

Jang Hee-sun Im Se-jin

Set Decoration Set Decoration

Park Seung-hyeon Lee Yong-jik

Visual Effects Visual Effects

Kim Tae-eui Chang Ick-jea Ryu Jae-hwan Jung Seok-jae Yuk Gwan-woo Kim Jong-sung

Stunts Stunts

Heo Myeong-haeng Kim Seon-wung Han Dae-ryong Lim Hyo-woo

Composer Composer

Cho Young-wuk

Sound Sound

Jung Gun Kim Chang-sub

Costume Design Costume Design

Cho Sang-kyung Choi Yoon-sun

Makeup Makeup

Sanai Pictures Artist Studio

South Korea

Primary language, spoken languages.

English Korean Japanese Portuguese

Releases by Date

19 may 2022, 27 jul 2022, 15 sep 2022, 03 dec 2022.

• Theatrical limited

04 Nov 2022

02 dec 2022, 10 aug 2022, 26 aug 2022, 01 sep 2022, 22 sep 2022, 20 oct 2022, 17 dec 2022, 02 feb 2023, 18 may 2023, 29 sep 2023, 10 feb 2023, 20 jul 2023, 21 jun 2023, 27 jul 2023, releases by country.

• Theatrical MA15+
• Theatrical 16
• Premiere Toronto International Film Festival
• Premiere Cannes Film Festival
• Physical DVD, Blu-Ray & 4K UHD
• Physical 16
• Theatrical IIB

Russian Federation

• Theatrical 18+ A-One Films

Saudi Arabia

• Premiere Red Sea International Film Festival
• Premiere 15 Gangnam, Seoul
• Theatrical 15
• Theatrical น15+
• Theatrical limited 15

131 mins   More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by Randa ★★½

Hunt is: A ction Packed V isually harsh E ntertaining enough R ewatching is ABSOLUTELY needed A proof that Lee Jung Jae can Direct a film. G reat production design. E verything got real confusing real fast.

Really good beginning though!

Final Score : 68% 🍏

LEE JUNG JAE OPPA

Review by SupremeLemon (지존레몬) ★ 27

*I was going to save much of what I said here for my essay on The Host, but whatever; I can always write them up again. The ideas will be better written and more polished when the time comes.*

"In the last 75 years, we've done everything we possibly could to destroy the economy of North Korea, and at the same time, with which I agree, we did everything we could to enhance and improve the economy and the culture of South Korea." - President Carter on North Korea

Hunt expects viewers to have some knowledge about the historical and political context surrounding the setting of the film, so I'm going to provide the context and then explain why I…

Review by davidehrlich ★★½

An energetic yet hopelessly convoluted espionage thriller that doesn’t tell a story so much as it chronically bumps into one, “Hunt” — the directorial debut of “Squid Game” star Lee Jung-jae, who also co-wrote the script and plays the lead role — begins with a premise so primed for spy-vs-spy mind games that you can almost hear John le Carré licking his lips from beyond the grave.

It’s the early 1980s, North and South Korea are locked in a paranoia-driven cold war, and the Gwangju Uprising (during which hundreds, if not thousands, of South Korean students were killed while demonstrating against martial law) is still fresh in everyone’s minds. In fact, the massacre has left such a stain on the…

Review by Madelyn ★★ 1

The loudest movie I’ve ever napped in

Review by Finn 🐛 ★★★ 5

23:30 I get into the last-minute line for the premiere. There are about 100 people in front of me. I’m starting to think I’m not getting in

23:45  The line starts moving. I make it through

23:55 Lee Jung Jae is on the red carpet with his cast and crew. Five minutes before the movie starts

23:58 People are starting the stress the fuck out. The ticket machines make that horrible beeping sound as we try to cram into the doors. 

23:59 I’m inside, Jung Jae is walking in on the big screen. Tension is high I finally find my seat

00:00 As the last people sit down the lights are turned off. In great relief, we clap to the…

Review by Bijan ★ 1

And then this happened! And then- and then - AND thEN!!! And then... BUT BUT BUT ...... TWIST omg SHE shot WHOOO??? And then WHO did WHATv?? BANG BANG BNAG WHOOOOOOOOOOOO squid game man

Review by Juju Hot Takes 🇨🇦 🇻🇳 ★★½

Bro, it's incredible how much I understood nothing, so many huge incoherent plots during 2 hours. Lee Jung-jae is good at holding a camera and filming great action scenes, but when 4 of you work on the script and absolutely no one understands what he's writing, it's funny. A twisted thriller based on the geopolitical context of Korea in the 80s, with a strong focus on domestic politics and espionage. The problem is you don't know who's who, and in the end it's just a propaganda film in a big competition to see who can get the biggest pair of balls between South and North Korea a little too Americanized stuck in a brothel and I'm almost disappointed there wasn't a cameo from Liam Neeson who came to save everyone "Calm down communists" with his angry look.

Asian movies

Review by Matt Neglia ★★½ 1

HUNT thrillingly moves from one tremendous action scene to the next with little room to breathe or allow its convoluted story to make sense. Exciting filmmaking by Lee Jung-jae with lots of bullets, betrayals and explosions but emotionally hollow despite its serious intentions. Past a certain point, I couldn’t tell you what it was about anymore but I was still thoroughly engaged by the filmmaking.

Review by Justin Decloux ★★★

Slick throwback to 90s action political thrillers, with tons of double-crossing, assault weapon-filled action scenes, and glowering leading men. I was gripped from the start, but then my attention waned due to everyone's motivations being so opaque, and the action was a little too hectically muddled. There's an interesting thesis about how no matter what you're doing, even if it's for the right reasons, people on top are corrupt and will destroy you without thinking, but it kinda gets lost in the constant shuffling and torturing people for information.

Review by HKFanatic ★★★★ 1

Hot damn, now this is the kind of Korean thriller I've been missing. Taking advantage of the international success of "Squid Game" to make the leap to the director's chair seemed like a logical enough career move for Lee Jung-jae, but I wasn't expecting the leading man to go this hard his first time out: it isn't long into "Hunt" before he's re-staging the shootout from "Heat" in the middle of 1980's Tokyo!

The film follows two top agents in South Korea's CIA attempting to find a mole within their ranks; with its Cold War setting and intense paranoia, it almost feels like a super-charged episode of "The Americans" with bursts of hyper-violence. I'm not sure if I was fully…

Review by More_Badass ★★★★ 6

Lee Jung-jae puts his decade-plus of Korean superstar good will and post-Squid Game blank check to superb use: a blistering directorial debut that’s the cinematic equivalent of a le Carré-x-Michael Mann heroic-bloodshed flick.

Hunt demands attention as its inter-KCIA mole hunt stretches from DC to Tokyo to Bangkok, unfolding via a bitter cloak-&-dagger rivalry between agency chiefs Park (Jung-jae) and Kim (K-action veteran Jung Woo-sung). This is an espionage thriller first and foremost - an intricate tangle of secret identities, cyphers, double-crosses, interrogations, torture, real historical events mixing with fictional spycraft, and twists upon twists - where the cat-&-mouse intrigue regularly erupts into violence and kinetic action choreographed by Train To Busan’s stunt coordinator.

Compared to genre contemporaries like The…

Review by Allison M. 🌱 ★★★

Political thrillers are right up my alley, but this was very stiff except for a couple of exciting but isolated scenes. Subtext and motivation were missing from the characters; we had this for Squid Game  (which stars Lee Jung-jae), but not Hunt . Not every actor should choose to direct.

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Hunt (2022) Movie Explained – Who is Donglim? What is Operation Flare?

Hunt (2022) plot.

It is 1983, and Korean students in the US are protesting against the diplomatic visit of their President Chun Doo-hwan, a military dictator, to Washington. Chief Park, head of the KCIA’s Foreign Unit, and Chief Kim, head of the KCIA’s Domestic Unit, are part of the President’s security detail. Though they’re colleagues, they share a hostile history since, following the previous President’s illegal deposition, all KCIA agents were interrogated. Kim, then in the army, was Park’s interrogator, and the latter was physically injured by the former. A CIA operative informs the KCIA’s director that it’s essential for the current Korean president to hold on to power as it is essential to American military presence in the Asia-Pacific region. An assassination attempt on the President takes place but is foiled when following a chase, Kim kills the last member of the team, much to Park’s chagrin since he wanted information from them. 

The KCIA is hard at work to find Donglim. When a North Korean nuclear physicist with sensitive information wants to defect, a team is sent to Japan to take him in. But conflicting orders from the KCIA’s chief cause mayhem. The physicist dies, and his family is abandoned and left at the mercy of North Korean forces. The KCIA’s chief of Japanese operations gets wounded fatally and goes into a coma. Following this, Park uncovers the director’s corrupt dealings that caused the Japanese mission to extract Pyo and his family and the 417 spec ops mission to fail through an illegal internal investigation that forces him to resign.

What is Operation Hunt Peter? 

Operation Hunt Peter is the name of a covert operation that is being funded by Jupiter Corp and its head, CEO Choi. Chief Kim and Choi are both parts of a clandestine cell that aims to eliminate President Chun Doo-hwan. The unit has no connections to North Korea or its intelligence units and is an independent group that has, at its heart, the interest of South Korean democracy. Both Choi and Kim were part of the armed forces that were deployed at Gwangu in May 1980 during a brutal military suppression of an armed rebellion against the South Korean government, which was transitioning into a military dictatorship following the assassination of the country’s third president and the illegal deposition of the fourth one. Over the course of 10 days, the army murdered thousands of civilians, alongside committing a host of other crimes. 

What is Operation Flare?

Operation Flare, as the chief of the Ministry of People’s Armed Forces, Cheon Bo-San outlines, is what will follow once the North Koreans have eliminated the South Korean president in an aggressive military coup. The plan involves invading South Korea, deposing its government, and unifying both nations. It is to take place over the course of 6 hours, during which the North Korean army will undertake large-scale elimination of South Koreans as it takes over the nation. For Chief Park, the real Donglim, as we discover, Operation Flare comes as a terrible shock since he believed that following the President’s assassination, a peaceful revolution would be undertaken to reunify both nations. Part of the plan involves killing off Park once the President has been successfully assassinated. 

Why does Kim save Park? 

The KCIA infiltrates the MPAF’s base just as Cheon is going to kill Park. From the spilled burning documents, Kim gets concrete proof of Park being Donglim. The words ‘peaceful revolution’ is written on the document, which Kim assumes is what the North Koreans plan on doing once the President is dead, unaware of Operation Flare. He, therefore, saves Park when he realizes that both their ideological goals involve killing the current President and that Park can be a valuable ally. Since the MPAF had already killed Jang, they framed him as Donglim, which allowed Park to go back to his old job as part of the KCIA and hence, aid Kim in Bangkok. 

Hunt (2022) Ending Explained

Why does park try to save the president .

Who is Yoo-Jung?

Yoo-Jung is not a regular South Korean citizen who grew up in Japan but is a North Korean spy whose job is, as Kim’s team discovers during their investigation, to pass on Donglim’s intel to North Korea. Her real name isn’t Cheon Bo-san, though, as Kim’s team suspects. That’s why when Park meets her inside the interrogation chamber; he asks her to hold her ground and not give away any information. It’s also why she went to a North Korean school while growing up in Japan with her father, Won-sik, another North Korean spy in league with Park.

At the end of the film, when Park goes to meet her in Namhae, the MPAF is already with her and shoots down Park to foil their plans. Yet Park had already developed a paternal sense of affection for her. He had made Yoo-Jung a South Korean passport, so she could lead a happy life as a citizen of that country instead of returning to North Korea after completing their mission. In fact, he even gave her his own surname.

More from South Korean Cinema:

The 35 best south korean movies of the 21st century, 14 great south korean movies on netflix, 150+ classic korean films are streaming for free on youtube, 10 south korean thrillers with notable socio-economic commentary, hunt (2022) official trailer.

Hunt (2022) Movie Links: IMDb

Where to watch hunt, trending right now.

Shahim aims to be associated with films in some capacity all his life. To him, Welles, Cassevetes, Tarkovsky and Haneke embody why cinema is the greatest of all art forms.

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