Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
Korean society has collapsed due to devastating earthquakes, and now alligators roam its streets, hunting for food or becoming prey themselves. Yeah, I think just with its opening scene of an 18-year-old trying to kill a gigantic reptile with his homemade bow and arrows, establishes that the 2024 dystopian action flick “Badland Hunters” is for mindless fun. Half the film feels like a video-game, where the main character is simply on a killing rampage, rapidly murdering one bad guy after the other.
Directed by Heo Myeong Haeng, “Badland Hunters” has a barely there plot that follows Nam San (Ma Dong-seok), a badass hunter on a mission to rescue teen Han Suna (Roh Jeong-eui) taken in by a group who claim to offer safe haven to youngsters but their facility is run by a mad doctor (Lee Hee-joon) conducting dangerous experiments on children. Nam San is joined by his young protege Choi Ji Wan (Lee Joon Young) and a former special forces officer Lee Eun Ho (Ahn Ji Hye) in his plot to infiltrate the crazy doctor’s heavy security fortress and save Han Suna.
The cinematography of “Badland Hunters” brings to viewers a dusty ‘end-of-world’ Korea which looks like a mash of a bunch of post-apocalyptic movies, think “The Walking Dead”, “Bird Box”, or “All of Us Are Dead”. While there are no zombies in this film, it does features some peculiar genetically mutated human beings, courtesy the experiments of the mad doctor.
Ma Dong-seok gets to play a one man army as Nam San in “Badland Hunters”, who goes around beating the bad guys, doesn’t matter what their numbers. Some refer to him as ‘the beast’. But Nam San is a beast with a soft heart for kids – he is like a foster dad to 18-year-old Choi Ji Wan, and is quite fond of Han Suna, a young girl who lives with her aged grandmother and often brings beautiful sketches to barter with him. Ma Dong-seok plays the textbook “tough exterior, soft interior” archetype with ease, making him pretty likable. I can imagine him playing the character ‘Big Man’ if Netflix ever decided to make a Korean version of the fantasy series “Sweet Tooth”.
The first half of “Badland Hunters” is only mildly amusing, featuring forgettable skirmishes, but the second half of the film delivers grittier and gorier action scenes. The camera follows the protagonists in violent face-offs akin to first-person shooter games, which can be pretty fun to watch for action fans. Lee Eun Ho also gets to kick a lot of butt as Ahn Ji Hye, a fearless fighter who doesn’t let power corrupt her. All in all, it’s a decent flick if you’re just looking to kill some time, but don’t expect too much from the storyline.
You can watch “Badland Hunters” on Netflix.
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