Time to Hunt

In a Korea whose economy has collapsed, whose streets are armed and whose money is worthless, four young men plan one last job to change their lives: robbing a casino's cash room. It works, and then an unidentified man starts hunting them and the film becomes a chase. It is not interested in the robbery. It is interested in there being nowhere to run: the real aim of their plan is to leave the country, and the film shows the impossibility of that scene by scene. The form is built on sound: the pursuer's arrival is usually announced by noise before image. Darkness, neon and narrow corridors are its visual language. Yoon Sung-hyun wrote and directed; his first film, Bleak Night, was also about youth and violence. Its distribution ended up in court. Shown at the Berlinale in 2020, the film was pulled from cinemas because of the pandemic and then sold to Netflix. The international sales agent Contents Panda said the contract had been terminated unilaterally and obtained an injunction, and a Seoul court halted the global release. The parties settled on 16 April 2020, the injunction was lifted, and the film went out on 23 April. Lee Je-hoon, Ahn Jae-hong and Choi Woo-shik star. Who it is for: viewers who like Korean thrillers and dystopian atmosphere. Who it is not for: anyone who wants a driving plot. The second half becomes a single chase and the film is too long.