Bullet Points: Badland Hunters
In this edition of Bullet Points I will take another trip around the world, courtesy of Netflix. This time out my destination is South Korea and the post-apocalyptic action of 2024’s Badland Hunters…
- The Re-Animator: The movie begins in the laboratory of Dr.Yang Gi-su (Lee Hee-joon) and right from the start we see that the doctor is more akin to a mad scientist. The authorities have caught wind of Dr. Gi-su’s unorthodox experiments in order to keep his dying daughter alive. Gi-su is on the verge of a breakthrough, when the authorities break through his door and order him to cease and desist immediately. And that’s when a catastrophic earthquake hits Seoul, Korea!
- After the Shock: Following the Great Quake, what was once South Korea is now a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Civilization has collapsed, water is scarce thanks to a total lack of rain, which means food is hard to come by as well. The absence of law and order has opened the door for bandits and barbarians to pillage and plunder at will… but there are some heroes left in the world. Nam-san and his trusted sidekick, Choi Ji-wan , are wasteland hunters. We are first introduced to Nam-san and Ji-wan as they successfully hunt down a crocodile. The meat from the croc will help feed the people of their village, including their friends Han Su-na and her grandmother.
- The Apartment: Word has spread among the survivors of an apartment building in Seoul that survived the Great Quake. That legend is confirmed when some representatives from the colony that calls the apartment complex home, offers a chance for Su-na to attend school and live there with her grandmother. This an offer that seems too good to be true and for good reason… Su-na begins to suspect something when they split her and her grandmother up and Nam-san (Ma Dong-seok aka Don Lee) and Ji-wan are about to get a real eye opener about the colony that their friend Su-na will be calling home. The revelation comes after Nam-san and Ji-wan are attacked by some soldiers, who instantly come back to life after they are killed. Enter Lee Eun-ho, a former special forces sergeant who knows how to defeat these “invincible” soldiers… cut their heads off! Eun-ho knows how to defeat them, because she was once a part of the colony that calls the apartment their home and calls Dr. Gi-su their leader… that’s right, he survived the Great Quake and his experiments to bring his daughter back to him continue… and he needs teenage girls to make that happen, hence why Su-na was recruited!
- Barbarians at the Gate: While Nam-san, Eun-ho and Ji-wan are planning their attack and rescue mission, Su-na is finding out first hand that there is something very wrong at the apartment. And after she does some snooping around, she finds herself strapped to an operating table in Dr. Gi-su’s lab and it seems like she is about to become another victim of the evil doctor… good thing for her the calvary arrives just in the nick of time. Nam-san (with some help from an unlikely source) literally storms the gate and all hell is about to break loose at the apartment. Our trio of heroes has to contend with more of Gi-su’s experimental soldiers and there’s a pretty epic one-on-one battle between Nam-san and Gi-su’s Master Sergeant… eventually Gi-su gets in on the action directly, as do the families he fooled with his vision of a better tomorrow!
Badland Hunters was a wild ride with plenty of over the top violence and gore! Don Lee’s Nam-san is a hero who packs one helluva punch and some great comic timing to boot. For me, Badland Hunters was also a great introduction to modern South Korean cinema. Badland Hunters dropped on Netflix last week and it is a movie I would recommend to post-apocalyptic film fans and any action fanatic looking for a fun streaming experience!
