Yoon Sung-hyun: TIME TO HUNT (2020)

윤성현: 사냥의 시간

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* Warning: This post contains spoilers! *

Neon-Red Dystopia:
The Art of Hopelessness in Time to Hunt

I didn't quite know what to expect after the opening of Time to Hunt, where two guys were arguing about whether to start selling second-hand clothes. But from the moment the music under the opening credits kicked in and we set off on a car journey, I followed the unfolding of this strange film with my jaw dropped.

Its story could be summarized in just a few words: four boys rob a gambling den, then flee from a murderous figure pursuing them. A simple action movie—one might think based on this—but writer-director Yoon Sung-hyun does something entirely different.

Director Yoon Sung-hyun

First, he creates an incredible backdrop in which to place his heroes. At the beginning of the film, we have no idea where we are, because everything seems familiar, yet we feel a very strong sense of alienation. We see figures lingering on deserted streets and protesters facing police cordons. People are surrounded by an apocalyptic world: a city that seems to still function somewhat—cars drive the streets and neon signs flash—but everything is only a distorted reflection of a former life. It is as if the entire city had been devoured by one of its particularly dangerous neighborhoods: everything lies in ruins, neglected and looted; garbage and stench reign. It seems impossible for the term "stylish" to come to mind when depicting poverty, yet that is exactly what happened. Because the cinematic spectacle we receive is an incredible stylistic feat: the skeletons of skyscrapers looming through misty glows, the graffitied storefronts of looted, gaping shops, and the images of peeling plaster and rusted metal structures assemble into moving paintings, sometimes in a bluish haze, sometimes in daylight dominated by a grey sky. The dominant colors of the film are blue and red, whether we are on nocturnal streets or in interior spaces.

Only later does the picture come together of what happened. Korea has been plunged into poverty by a national bankruptcy; jobs are disappearing one after another, and everyone makes a living however they can—through scheming or crime. However, the city also has an underground scene where we learn how people spend their time: entertainment venues and gambling dens are flourishing.

Because of the incredible visual world, I almost failed to notice how slow the film's pace is. The characters of the main boys are drawn very leisurely, placing an unusually large emphasis on emotional grounding. Even though we know the facts, we do not see them as criminals. They are rather ordinary young people trying to escape an oppressive reality, and in their dreams, they long for almost ridiculously simple things: they want to experience the warmth of the sun and the purity of water within the framework of a calmer life. Replacing their families, they cling to each other as if they were brothers.

With a bold idea, they find what seems to be a surefire way to get money: they must rob the gambling den, since the operators of the illegal establishment won't set the police on them. They plan the action skillfully and manage to execute it, so it seems they can easily flee the country. We are already a third of the way through the film when they realize that someone is on their trail. From this point on, the experience of admiring the visual world is taken over by the thriller, which stems from the excitement of the chase and increasingly turns into a duel between the leader of the boys and the figure who won't let them go like a pitbull. A particular interest of the story is that we, as viewers, find out why the boys have incurred the wrath of the underworld, while for them, this remains unknown.

The boys are not killers. Although they acquired a serious arsenal of weapons for the robbery, they are initially incapable of using them to kill. They are simply afraid, their fingers tremble on the trigger; they want nothing more than to escape. Furthermore, the mastermind of the robbery, Jun-seok—due to whom the others participated in the action—is haunted by nightmares because of his prison experiences and the guilt of putting his friends in danger. During the flight, they appear as total amateurs who, due to terror, make dilettante mistakes even by those standards. Many viewers will obviously be driven to distraction by the resulting irregular action scenes, but all of this follows logically from the boys' characters.

It seems that the cold-blooded figure on their heels is a lone wolf, but this is far from the case. It turns out that although he has no partner, his back-up is formed by the police. The commission for the action, however, was given by the underworld, which also highlights the corruption of the police organization. The fellow named Han is, moreover, highly psychopathic, pathologically enjoying the manhunt for his targets. He collects severed ears as trophies.

In the pursuit-escape process, we see two major clashes, each of which raises our adrenaline levels sufficiently. The interior spaces of the hospital and the abandoned port building provide excellent locations for the cat-and-mouse game. Under the influence of the shocking events, Jun-seok must choose: either become a victim or take up the fight against his opponent. In his final desperation, he does the latter, but nearly loses; he owes his escape only to the unexpectedly intervening gunmen.

Jun-seok arrives alone in the dreamed-of new world, where he cannot escape the memory of his companions, who are either on the casualty list or whose fate is unknown. When he hears that Han is alive, a crushing sense of responsibility drives him to return and face the stranger who played a bloody game with them—with this, the filmmakers left open the possibility of a sequel.

All four members of the main quartet are individual characters; only the fear overwhelming their bravado is a common trait. Shorter screen time goes to Park Sung-min, who plays Sang-soo and is perhaps the most adult among the boys. The most innocent, however, is Ki-hoon, a well-meaning and handsome lad who also worries for his family, played by the Korean-Canadian actor Choi Woo-shik. Jang-ho is big-hearted and self-sacrificing, whose character—not exactly typical for an action film—is thanks to Ahn Jae-hong's great performance.

The film, however, is dominated by Lee Je-hoon, who is a charismatic actor. His Jun-seok is a figure who is simultaneously determined, cool, and capable of action, a leader whose sharpened senses feel danger. For me, his performance at the beginning of the story remains memorable, when he experiences deep disappointment upon learning from the others that they have nothing left. Behind his barely flickering face, we can see that he dies a little in that moment as his desires vanish, yet he cannot bring himself to reproach his friends. He palpably carries buried stories within him as well, which make him overly sensitive. He is not a cold-blooded, nor even a balanced-minded figure; Lee convincingly conveys his maturation through the stages of desire for escape—gathering courage to take up the fight—and conscious confrontation.

In the role of Han, Park Hae-soo had to make a rather one-dimensional character interesting, which he managed to achieve with the help of a cinematic portrayal emphasizing the figure's mystery. We rarely see Han's hard and expressionless face; his figure mostly fades into the shadows, but his silhouette is burned into us.

Jo Sung-ha also appeared as a memorable character in the role of the arms dealer, this time with a rather interesting external appearance. But I was even jolted out of the film's momentum when, due to his quick write-out from the story, the question occurred to me: how could he take on such a tiny role? But what followed played a good trick on me...

We owe the entire composition and performance of the film score, which powerfully underscores the dystopian atmosphere, to Choi Dong-hoon, under the stage name Primary.

Time to Hunt will not satisfy those longing for the clichés of conventional action thrillers. But I must admit that director Yoon's film made a very deep impression on me. It represents exactly what I hold in the highest regard in Korean films: the courage to break traditions, not for its own sake, but in order to serve the expression of important thoughts, saturated with an individual vision and creating new contexts. Because Time to Hunt also has something to say about what remains if our capitalist present collapses. Sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll? Almost. Hopelessness, drugs, and guns.

There are few films whose sequel I await, but this one, I do.