Badland Hunters - A Heavy Action Movie Based on Webtoon and Different Kind of Sequel to its Predecessor

I already knew there was going to be a new movie starring Ma Dong-seok since few weeks ago on Netflix. As fan of his action style, I obviously did not want to miss the chance of watching the film as soon as it was released yesterday. So much so that I opted to watch it as opposed to see a movie at the cinema. Anyway, here's more on it.

Brief Story Line

After a heavy earthquake rocked South Korea, the country had become quite uninhabitable. Some of the survivors gathered and lived in villages like the hunter Nam-san (Ma Dong-seok - The Roundup: No Way Out, Eternals etc) and his young partner Ji-wan (Lee Jun-young - Love and Leashes, Goodbye to Goodbye TV series etc) who had a crush on Su-na (Roh Jeung-eui - 18 Again TV series, The Day I Died: Unclosed Case etc).

When Nam-san found out about the existence of an apartment said to be a safe haven for survivors with clean water and all, he did not really consider it. However, he soon changed his mind when it was found out there was something wrong with the place controlled by Doctor Yang Gi-su (Lee Hee-joon - The Drug King, Mouse TV series etc). So with the help from Lee Eun-ho (An Ji-hye - Our Body, Project Wolf Hunting etc), Nam-san and Ji-wan decided to go to the place.

So how would the story conclude? You could find out in this movie.

End of Brief Story Line

It was funny how the story reminded me a bit of another South Korean movie where there was also an apartment left standing after the heavy earthquake titled Concrete Utopia. Apparently after I read on the internet, it was indeed a sequel to that movie, although I think this was an independent one due to no characters from the original film appeared here. Anyway, the film started off quite brightly with a bit of background on the Doctor and some lighter moments when introducing Nam-san and Ji-wan.

But the exciting moments came when Nam-san started to show his amazing fighting skills. Using his large body built and obvious strength, he managed to punched out the bad guys with ease. After that, the plot became pretty standard and I could immediately see where it was heading. Nevertheless, with the occasional action sequence every now and then, combined with the unexpected abilities of the enemies made them very entertaining.

Unlike its predecessor, this movie focused more on the action rather than drama. Not sure how people would view it but I personally enjoyed this a lot as I am a major fan of action films. Especially with Ma Dong-seok who always showed his awesome fight capabilities and satisfying for us who love actions. Although his character was shown to be similar to his other movies, a kind hearted big guy who was never afraid of facing many people by himself and sometimes provided a bit of humor. But the one that impressed me was An Ji-hye with her extraordinary martial arts skill. I read that she did 99% of her own stunt which made me even more in awe. In addition, there were support characters like Sergeant Kwon (Park Ji-hoon - The Worst of Evil TV series etc), Tiger (Park Hyo-joon - The Bad Guys: Reign of Chaos etc), teacher (Jang Young-nam - Confidential Assignment, Captivating the King TV series etc), jewellery lady (Jung Young-joo - Cafe Midnight, A Good Day to be a Dog TV series etc) who provided humor and few others.  

During the opening credit and closing credits, I personally could not see any useful information as they were almost all were in Korean language. There was no mid or post end credit scenes at all either. But I did see there were quite large visual effects team which was understandable with some CGI showing the South Korea's aftermath condition after the quake plus the action sequence. Btw, the action were fast pace, brutal and quite graphics. I think the director Heo Myung-haeng (in his directorial debut) wanted to emphasize on the ruthlessness of the fights. His style of directing in those action scenes were following closely the people and changed to another camera when necessary, but he did not use any slow motion effects in specific scenes. It certainly made us feel the fights very swift and intense.

Overall this might be an inferior sequel for people who expected to see the same kind of drama, intensity and characters depth, but it would definitely be very enjoyable for fans of action like me and surely my wife who had not watch it yet. I'll have to ask her opinion after she watch this later. So if you like Ma Dong-seok's fighting styles, you would be entertained by this as he showed all the right moves, but if you expect a heavy drama then you would not find it here. The choice is yours.

Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars