Time To Hunt

사냥의 시간


Time to Hunt was probably the most frustrating movie experience I had recently. Maybe my expectations were already set too high after that beautiful movie of “night in paradise”, but whereas in that case I was left in awe, in this case I felt angry and dissatisfied. Warning: may contain spoilers.

“In the near future, a financial crisis will hit Korea and slums arise. From those areas, a group of young people commit crime to survive.” So the summary says on Wikipedia.

I chose this movie looking for something light to watch and packed with action, so probably I shouldn’t have expected a masterpiece in the first place. But nevertheless I did not enjoy it that much. First of all there something that felt “off” all throughout. Maybe it was the setting. That “dystopian future” that felt poorly developed in the plot and only functioned as a backdrop, but never felt really necessary for the story. Or maybe the characters, also a bit too stereotypical to be relatable and generally poorly developed as well.

There was nothing about this dystopia that really had an impact in the story, and neither the atmosphere, if not just as a justification of the big “heist” that the street gang wants to organize, but nothing else.

The kids are supposed to be “poor”, but you never get this feeling when they drive cool-ass looking cars, they sport sleek haircuts (talking to you, Ki-hoon) or they have expensive-looking phones. So they kinda look like a bunch or rich kids in a poor neighbourhood, even if that wasn’t completely intentional. None of them is really standing out with their personality, except maybe for Jang-ho, the most interesting one. But everyone else is so blank and stereotypical.

Dialogues are flat and they tend to be overly descriptive, completely missing the point of the “show, don’t tell” rule.

But honestly the real flaw was the script itself. The cringe-y plot-twist where (spoiler alert!) the hitman step back from its misison makes you wanna give up with the rest of the movie. I mean, i get it. It’s part of the weirdness of the character, but come on! Doesn’t make any sense and at that point I was lost.

What saves this movie from a failure is the good direction. Despite all the flaws previously mentioned, there’s a good build-up of tension that keeps you hooked till the final resolution, and the cinematography is top-notch. Especially that moment on the road that seemed to be coming out of Valhalla Rising, and I don’t think it was completely a coincidence. On the contrary, it was a very cool reference that I appreciated.

Honestly it wasn’t a completely bad movie. I think it had some good ideas behind, but they were poorly executed and the final product is not completely convincing. But hey! I’ve heard that Netflix is going to produce a series out of this movie, so I guess I’m the only one who didn’t like it.

So don’t take just my words. You may too end up liking it in the end!

Visuals: ★ ★ ★

Screenplay: ★

Overall: ★ ★