Hounds of War returns with the same vigor, though with less purpose
Three years later, Netflix’s action K-drama may have lost its edge — but not its charm
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/uploads/conteudo/fotos/caes_2_topo.jpg "Rain, Woo Do-hwan, and Lee Sang-yi in Bloodhounds (Reproduction)")
Image credits: Rain, Woo Do-hwan, and Lee Sang-yi in Bloodhounds (Reproduction)
In 2023, when Bloodhounds premiered on Netflix, the k-drama created and directed by Kim Joo-hwan (Officer Black Belt) won audiences over with well-choreographed action scenes, a charismatic lead duo, and a compelling suspense story — but also with something more.
After all, Kim’s story was set not in the year it was released, but in 2020 and 2021, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, which served as both a mitigating factor for the central conflict (Gun-woo’s mother took out a predatory loan to save her business, but did so during an economically difficult period for the entire planet) and as its thematic and philosophical foundation.
Put more simply, what I mean is that meeting Gun-woo (Woo Do-hwan) and Woo-jin (Lee Sang-yi) during that historical moment — when their decency and humility helped ease the anguish of a world suffering on an incomparable scale — carried a certain weight. They forged bonds, positioned themselves as protectors of the vulnerable, and modeled a moral code that even convinced the filthy rich like Min-beom (Choi Si-won) to join them.
Maybe it’s even a little cheesy to say so, but Bloodhounds portrayed a time when the world needed, more than ever, exactly the kind of action heroes these two brought back.
The k-drama’s second season, however, opens by telling us that five years have passed since we last saw Gun-woo and Woo-jin — placing the story’s timeline exactly in the era we’re living in now, in 2025 or 2026. It’s not as if the planet has gotten much better in the meantime, but we’ve certainly slipped back into the slow-burning state of emergency we’ve already grown used to. Bloodhounds simply works better, as a piece of pop storytelling, when Gun-woo and Woo-jin can serve as the welcome (if temporary) cure for the palpable existential dread shared by its entire audience.
To director and writer Kim’s credit, though, it’s important to say that the second season does its best to overcome that temporal disadvantage. Above all, Bloodhounds strives to do three things: reaffirm the essence of its characters, pick back up the relationships and narrative threads established in earlier episodes, and replicate the first season’s technical momentum.
On the first two fronts, the premiere episode is already excellent, efficiently establishing where the protagonists now stand — Gun-woo as a boxing champion, Woo-jin as his trainer, both providing for everyone around them and proving themselves loyal companions to each other. It’s also there that we’re introduced to the conflict with the brutal underground fight promoter played by Rain.
Speaking of him, the k-pop icon fully embraces the chance to play his first major villain. Im Baek-jeong is a figure shrouded in shadows at the start of the season, but Rain already injects his early scenes with palpable rage. The actor understands what may be most important about the character: yes, he’s the head of a criminal operation, but he’s not a businessman. Money is the reward for brutality, but brutality is the point — Baek-jeong, in short, is the perfect opposing force for the honorable, respectful athletes who serve as this story’s heroes. Impulsive, physically imposing, and possessed of a slippery screen presence, Rain plays the role flawlessly.
The third element of the formula, then, is the action scenes — and three years certainly haven’t dimmed Kim Joo-hwan’s brilliance in that regard. Without ever losing sight of the characters’ boxing background, the director stages the fights with a strong sense of rhythm and impact: every blow is felt, amplified by excellent sound mixing. Even when he blends formats (as in the season’s first fight, where TV cameras mix with the protagonist’s point of view), the speed of the actors’/stunt performers’ movements never turns into visual language that’s incomprehensible to the audience.
Bloodhounds is still exhilarating, in the end, and it has an engaging heroes-vs.-villains clash to fuel its plot. There’s no denying it has lost a bit of its relevance, but it still has charisma to spare.
Cães de Caça
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