If you want to make something sound scary and evil, call it a project, like the Blair Witch Project, Colossus: the Forbin Project, or the 1619 Project. This project is also similarly sinister. It should have been called the “Cujo Project.” Any genre fan could have warned these government researchers that mutating dogs into assassins was a really bad idea, but they did it anyway. Unfortunately for Cha Jung-won, the dogs of war slip loose on the airport bridge he and his daughter find themselves trapped on in Kim Tae-gon’s Project Silence, which opens today in theaters.
Even though he is the deputy intelligence director in the current administration, Cha had no knowledge of Project Silence, until he gets stuck in the middle of it. Due to several Rube Goldberg-esque pile-ups, traffic on the bridge is blocked in both directions. Inconveniently, the super-secret military transport carrying the killer canines is part of the wreckage, which you know, lets the dogs out.
Initially, Cha believes he can coordinate a rescue operation from the ground, with the help of his boss, Jung Hyun-baek, the intelligence director, who happens to be their party’s presidential nominee. However, he eventually figures out what the rest of us knew from the start. Jung knew about Project Silence and he wants to bury the truth on the bridge.
Obviously, Project Silence cannibalizes elements from many other films. In some ways, it is Universal Soldier for dogs. It is also very a frustratingly dark film, not in terms of tone, but with respects to the actual lighting.
However, it is cool, in a decidedly bittersweet way, to see the late Lee Sun-kyun playing a morally complex action hero. He is rock-solid as Cha, but any fan of action movies or thrillers should catch out his brilliantly funny work in A Hard Day.
Lee also has decent chemistry with Ju Ji-hoon, who hams it up a little, but not overpoweringly so, as Joe Park, the bickering tow-truck driver Cha must work with. Kim Tae-woo is also suitably sleazy as Jung. However, Kim Hee-won is weirdly colorless as Dr. Yang, the scientist traveling with the dogs.
Ironically, despite the savagery of the canine assassins and the often conspicuously digital-looking effects, it is a little jarring to see so many dogs getting smacked around. The execution is uneven, but Kim’s still maintains the tension even when the visuals are murky. It is also a reminder of Lee’s incredible versatility. Recommended as a better version of the ridiculously over-rated The Host, Project Silence opens today (7/12) in New York at the AMC Empire.