Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on August 2012

A depressed, borderline-suicidal professional wolf hunter (Liam Neeson) takes on the alpha male duties among a handful of Alaskan pipeline workers who have survived a plane crash in the frozen wilderness, where the highly territorial wolves enjoy a decided home-court advantage. Despite some pretty exciting sequences, don’t be looking for an action flick here. This spare, subtly existential, even poetic study of the will to live in the face of insurmountable odds subverts escapist anticipations and goes way deeper than that. Consider that the title may not even refer to the wolves’ coloring.