Tag: Kim Hong-sun

Traffickers (공모자들, Kim Hong-sun, 2012)

Posted on by

The one with money and power wins. The ones without it lose everything they’ve got. In many ways, it’s the overriding message of contemporary Korean cinema, but the words take on an even darker hue when uttered by the villain of Kim Hong-sun’s illegal organ transplant drama, Traffickers (공모자들, Gongmojadeul). The film’s Korean title, Conspirators, hints at the ways that this world reduces everyone to one degree or another to something less than human as they chase often small dreams of health, comfort, and happiness, in which the central conspiracy comes to stand in for a world ruled by power and money.

Young-gyu (Im Chang-jung) used to be an organ trafficker, but gave up that side of his business when his best friend was killed by a victim who woke up unexpectedly and tried to escape. Since then, he’s smuggled moderately less inhuman things and has developed a crush on a young woman who works on the ticket counter at the port. Yu-ri (Jo Yoon-hee) has a sick father who needs a transplant, but the one was lined up for is cancelled at the last minute apparently because she neglected to inform them of an issue which gave them an excuse to pull out in what seems to be a suggestion that the list is being manipulated. Fearing her only option is the black market, Yu-ri is in desperate need of money and turn to one of Young-gyu’s acquaintances, the leader of a Chinese gang. To get her the money Young-gyu decides to pull one last job, but soon finds himself in over his head as his new target turns out to have a connection to his past.

The film never really goes into Yu-ri’s decision get her father a black market transplant but rather focuses on her desperation as someone who has been frozen out of the legitimate system which itself already prioritises those with means to fight for better or more efficient treatment. It’s not clear if she is aware that the organ may come from someone who has been killed deliberately for that purpose, or if she knew but decided her father’s life was more important than theirs. Nor is it clear if she’s thought through the repercussions of indebting herself to gangsters for some of whom organ harvesting is just another means of debt collection. In any case, all she really cares about is saving her father and it seems she is willing to do whatever that takes. 

To that extent, what they prey on is desperation. The gangsters don’t expect their victims to ask too many questions, because this is all illegal anyway and they’re already at their last resort to save a loved one’s life. That said, it seems strange that they would choose Chae-hee (Jung Ji-yoon), a young woman who uses a wheelchair and thinks she’s just going to China on holiday, who is travelling with her husband, to be their next victim given that there is obviously someone who is going to be looking for her. They generally assume most of their other victims won’t be missed and write them off as those of little consequence swallowed by a dog-eat-dog world. It seems that part of the gangster’s motivation is that they don’t want to become victims themselves so have chosen the path of violence and inhumanity. 

But despite his occupation, Young-gyu is conflicted about the bloodiness of his work and on realising that he has a connection to Chae-hee begins to want to save her while equally wanting to save Yu-ri and her father. The traffickers have, however, sold them all false promise in that it’s mainly the people who were trying to buy transplants that end up becoming victims and it’s not actually clear who is getting any of these organs until a final suggestion that they’re actually going to rich people in Korea who wanted to jump the transplant queue, meaning people like Yu-ri and and her father lose out twice over. Organ trafficking works hand in hand with life insurance scams looking to make money off human misery while rich elderly men buy the blood and organs of young ones in a kind of human sacrifice they think will return their youth and and vitality in an one the nose metaphor for how the older generation oppresses the young. In this bleak and nihilistic world, the film suggests that its villain was right. The ones with money and power win, while those without are quite literally consumed and exploited by a corrupt and inhuman system. 

Trailer (English subtitles

Project Wolf Hunting (늑대사냥, Kim Hong-sun, 2022)

Posted on by

“Remember, there’s nowhere to run” an arrogant police officer explains to collection of rapists and murderers locked aboard a cargo ship ready to be delivered to “justice” in Korea having attempted to flee to the Philippines. It is in someways ironic that these men and women, depraved as many of them may be, have been loaded onto a commercial vessel to be shipped home less like cattle than faceless and inanimate objects. Kim Hong-sun’s eerie gore fest Project Wolf Hunting (늑대사냥, Neukdaesanyang) is in many ways about the horrors of the past but also suggests that the present is little better in a world in which there is little difference between cop and thug and we are all at the mercy of looming violence. 

As one older prisoner puts it, “if this isn’t hell, I don’t know what is”. Thanks to an international extradition arrangement some of the worst Korean criminals are about to be repatriated from the Philippines only the historic event is disrupted by a suicide bombing carried out by a disgruntled victim whose smashed glasses and severed limbs are an eerie harbinger of what’s to come. After a rethink, the government decides to hire a cargo boat instead so the public won’t have access to the criminals, which is somewhat ironic, while accompanied by a crack team of veteran cops each with over 10 years of experience on the force. Already it isn’t seeming like a very well thought through plan, but as Captain Lee (Park Ho-San), who openly beats a prisoner with whom he has prior history on the dock, points out, there aren’t any cameras so he has full authority to enforce the law with no concern for the rights of inmates nor basic human morality. To cut it short, he’s little different than they are even if he isn’t, as far as we know, a multiple murderer or rapist. 

In any case, keeping a bunch of violent criminals handcuffed with only one bathroom break a day and no stimulation seems like a recipe for disaster even if it weren’t just plain inhumane. But inevitably the operation is compromised by an attempt to spring a gang boss which lets the criminals take control of the ship albeit temporarily seeing as there’s something else lurking in the bowels of this floating hellscape that is pure nightmare fuel and a not quite living embodiment of man’s inhumanity to man. Predictably, this all stems back to the abuses of the colonial era and the machinations of the equivalent of Unit 731 operating in the Philippines but has since seemingly been co-opted by a shady Korean organisation apparently also attracted to the research’s capitalistic potential in the booming anti-ageing market hoping to usher in the next stage of human evolution. 

What ensues is a parade of senseless violence in which cop and killer alike are stalked by a mysterious “monster” with wolf-like senses and preternatural strength, and that’s on top of the bloody destruction wrought by the vengeful criminals in their unsuccessful attempt to escape. As Lee had said, there really is nowhere to run though as it turns out that cuts both ways. The gang boss proves unexpectedly heroic, genuinely trying to save the moll who’d been arrested alongside him, while law enforcement reveals itself hopelessly out of depth even as Lee and his female subordinate Da-yeon (Jung So-min) pivot towards protecting the prisoners they were previously intent on oppressing as they form a temporary alliance to defend themselves against the mysterious threat, ironically a product of the “kemono” (beast) project and a reminder of what happens when you decide that some people aren’t really “human” after all. 

Even so, the rampage is indiscriminate. The “monster” doesn’t care if you’re a cop or a killer, all it knows is violence smashing in the heads of the toughest gangsters and ripping hearts out of well-built bodies without a second thought. It’s got no eyes but knows how to use a gun and it still might not be the scariest thing on the boat, at least not in the end as we wonder what exactly all this is for and what might be meant by the next evolution of our species. This is indeed hell and there’s no where to run either from the unresolved past or the malignant future. 

Project Wolf Hunting is released in the US on Digital, Blu-ray, and DVD on Feb. 14 courtesy of Well Go USA.

International trailer (English subtitles)