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Park Ho-san makes a grave misfire in Wild Boar Hunting

by solstices

MBC’s Wild Boar Hunting is shaping up to be just as interesting as its title. Having received an award at the MBC Drama Screenplay Contest for its unusual storyline and evocative emotions, the script promises a thrilling tale with unpredictable twists and turns.

It all begins when protagonist Young-soo (Park Ho-san) accidentally misfires while wild boar hunting, hitting a person instead. On that same night, Young-soo’s son goes missing — and thus begins Young-soo’s desperate quest to find his son and uncover the mystery surrounding the village.

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Billed as a countryside mystery thriller, the drama’s first teaser takes on an amusing tone. On a bright and sunny day, the village chief (Yoo Soon-woong) comes across a pair of villagers staring despondently at their trampled crops. He asks them what’s happened, and the two farmers — Jin-kook (Lee Kyu-hee) and Man-seok (Kwak Ja-hyung) — explain that the unsalvageable damage is the work of a wild boar yet again.

The wild boars are an incessant problem that plagues the village, as evidenced by the exasperated way the villagers utter the phrase “wild boar” like the words themselves are a pest. This forms the basis for Young-soo’s resolve to eliminate the problem once and for all — it’s time to go wild boar hunting.

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Young-soo teams up with Jin-kook and Man-seok in the drama’s second teaser, and they head to the back of the mountains with their hunting rifles. The rustling of bushes catches Young-soo’s attention, and he raises his gun to fire — but the sound of his shot is immediately met with a pained grunt that’s very much human.

A shell-shocked Young-soo returns home, but his son In-seong (Lee Hyo-je) doesn’t, and the bone-deep terror that he may have shot his own son begins to creep up on him. Wracked with grief, Young-soo returns to the mountain to unearth what happened. As he treks through the foliage, night falls, and he calls out In-seong’s name — only to be suddenly yanked away by an unknown force.

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The last teaser takes on a darker edge, opening with a somber voiceover from village granny Ok-soon (Yeh Soo-jung). Calling the villagers crazy, she reveals to missing-persons detective Doo-man (Hwang Jae-yeol) that a fire once broke out in her house, killing both her son and daughter-in-law. She now lives with her grandson Hyun-min (Lee Min-jae), but there’s more trouble brewing on the horizon — Hyun-min’s homeroom teacher, Yeon-chae (Lee Ji-won), notes that he hasn’t returned home since yesterday.

Unwilling to lose her only remaining family member, Ok-soon spirals into despair, demanding the whereabouts of her grandson from the police and the villagers alike. As the teaser draws to a close, Ok-soon vows that this time, she won’t just sit idly by.

Written by newcomer Jo Beom-gi and directed by Song Yeon-hwa (The Red Sleeve Cuff, When I Was The Most Beautiful), Wild Boar Hunting premieres on August 1. The four-episode drama will air Monday nights over the course of a month.