Film Review: Badland Hunters

This is so weird, so pardon as I provide some context. Badland Hunters is a sequel to South Korea’s submission for the Oscars – Concrete Utopia, though notably none of the original creators are involved. It’s a really good movie, but so tonally out of whack with what Badland Hunters is. Concrete Utopia is mainly a mostly grounded drama rooted in class conflict that takes cues from something like The Mist, specifically all the supermarket stuff. Meanwhile, Badland Hunters is a bloody action film that looks like it takes place in the Mad Max universe. I can’t recall the last time I’ve seen such a tonal discrepancy between two films that are on the same timeline. Not a problem, mind you, just…very weird.

The story takes place only 3 years after the events of the devastating earthquake. There are small communities scattered about trying to do the best they can to survive. We follow Nam-san (Don Lee) and his young partner, Choi ji-wan (Lee Jun-young), who hunt for meat to sell at a market, and occasionally keep gangs away. One day, they encounter a group of people who are looking for families that they can take to a safe haven – an apartment complex that will have food and water, and Su-na (Roh Jeong-eui) agrees to take her grandma along, after some encouragement from Nam-san. However, the people prove to have ulterior motives, with sinister plans afoot at the apartment building at the hands of Dr. Yang Gi-su (Lee Hee-joon). So, Nam-san and Choi ji-wan go on a rescue mission with the assistance of Lee Eun-ho (An Ji-hye), a soldier who knows the doctor’s true intentions.

The film is directed by Heo Myung-haeng with screenplay credit going to Kim Bo-tong and Kwak Jae-min. Heo is notable for being a stunt coordinator on films like New World and The Good The Bad The Weird, as well as being Don Lee/Ma Dong-seok’s body double on some projects. That history in stunts really shows through with this film because the action is very well done. The choreography is excellent, the camera work is dynamic and captures the movement of the performers really well, each hit has impact, and it moves at a really strong pace with a solid sense of storytelling within the action sequence, and sense of escalation as the plot goes on. They’re so exciting and fun and at times, delightfully bloody and gruesome.

If you’re looking for anything beyond that. There’s not really a whole lot. The only time the film really explores an idea is the notion of how far is it acceptable for one to try and save someone, speaking largely for the doctor character, who – without giving away too much – steps into mad scientist, eugenics territory. The class dynamic of Concrete Utopia doesn’t really follow through here, unless it’s done in a way that is hyper specific to South Korea that I may have missed. But given how well executed it is as a pure action movie, I got nothing to complain about.

Badland Hunters knows exactly the kind of movie it is. After the cold open, we have a scene of Choi ji-wan getting attacked by a surprisingly animated (and also obviously literally animated) alligator, and Don Lee just comes out with a machete and chops the reptile’s head off, followed by a badass line where he casually comments about how delicious it looks. Don Lee is the kind of physically imposing yet wildly charismatic action hero we haven’t seen in the west in a while, and it’s just so joyful seeing him navigate all the obstacles the story throws at him. The rest of the performers are really solid as well. I want to give a special shout out to An Ji-hye who really impresses with the action scenes, I’d love to see more of her. The film is just a blast, and while Concrete Utopia is a really great film, you don’t need to have seen it in order to understand this, you can just tune in, and have a good time.

Badland Hunters is now streaming on Netflix.