HOPE (호프) (2026)

Genre: Action/Sci-fi
Director: Na Hong-jin
Cast: Hwang Jung-min, Hoyeon, Zo In-Sung, Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander, Cameron Britton, Taylor Russell
Runtime: 2 hrs 36 mins
Rating: NC16 (Coarse Language and Violence)
Released By: Golden Village
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 10 September 2026

Synopsis: In the remote South Korea village of Hope Harbor, police chief Bum-seok (Hwang Jung- min) and officer Sung-ae (Hoyeon) are called to find a mysterious creature that has wreaked havoc on the village. In the nearby forest, a coterie of hunters, including Sung-ki (Zo In-Sung) set out to track the beast and find themselves hunted instead. But all is not as it seems, and perceptions can be misleading. What begins as ignorance plants the seed of disaster, escalating through human conflict into a tragedy of cosmic proportions.

Movie Review:

It speaks to Na Hong-jin’s virtuoso filmmaking that he earned the label of auteur after just three features. Between 'The Chaser', 'The Yellow Sea' and 'The Wailing', Na established a cinema of relentless pursuit, grotesque humour and violence capable of jolting an audience out of its seat. 'Hope' arrives a full decade after the last of those films, with expectations that almost invite disappointment. Whatever its shortcomings, nobody could accuse this fourth feature of lacking ambition, or its director of losing his appetite for mayhem.

Anyone who has seen the trailers will be expecting hunters to battle a monster through a small town and its surrounding forest. That is only half the proposition. Na eventually goes absolutely bonkers with aliens, expanding a grubby survival thriller into something approaching a science-fiction epic. At 160 minutes, Hope has room for both, although its considerable pleasures lie more in the ferocity of individual sequences than in how neatly everything fits together.

The setting is Hope Harbor, a fictional South Korean town near the Demilitarized Zone. Police chief Bum-seok (Hwang Jung-min) is summoned to examine a mutilated bull discovered by hunters led by his cousin Sung-ki (Zo In-sung). Their suggestion that a tiger has wandered over from the North does little to reassure him. When he returns to town, the devastation awaiting him makes that explanation look positively comforting. Reinforcements, inconveniently, are busy fighting wildfires elsewhere.

From here, the first half unfolds as an extended cat-and-mouse game through smashed shops, narrow streets and buildings whose walls offer precious little protection. Na withholds a proper look at the creature for more than half an hour, letting us discover its capabilities through the destruction it leaves behind. An approaching crash or a vehicle hurled into view does the work of a conventional reveal. Even before a clawed hand reaches from the darkness, the town seems frighteningly incapable of containing whatever is loose.

The location also affords Na some wonderfully malicious visual jokes. Signs urging residents to “Report Spies!” and “Guard Against Infiltrators!” acquire fresh absurdity as the invasion takes an altogether unexpected form. The humour can be considerably nastier: a burst of supposedly defensive gunfire hits the local butcher, who briefly continues his telephone conversation before collapsing. Na keeps finding that uncomfortable point where a laugh catches in the throat.

Relief arrives with rookie officer Sung-ae, played with infectious gusto by Hoyeon. Armed far beyond what her superior seems to have authorised, she tears into the chaos with an indignation that is almost funnier than outright fear. Bum-seok’s insistence on asking where the weapons came from becomes increasingly ridiculous amid the carnage. Their bickering gives the action a welcome human rhythm, even when survival depends on driving faster and shooting harder.

The second half takes that momentum into the woods, where the hunters’ expedition becomes a furious chase through the trees. Horseback action gives these stretches a bracing physicality, with riders and creatures negotiating terrain that feels dangerous before anybody starts firing. As the extraterrestrial dimension expands, the film also pauses for explanations and mythology that are less compelling than the pursuit. Na’s imagination keeps enlarging the predicament, sometimes faster than his screenplay can make us care about it.

But then comes the highway chase, and any impatience is comprehensively bulldozed. It is an absolutely exhilarating escalation of vehicular combat, desperate gunplay and apparently inexhaustible forward motion, with Sung-ki taking shots from a speeding police car. Na keeps extending the sequence, finding another burst of danger just when it seems there can be nowhere left to go. There is an almost lunatic confidence to the staging. This really is action that needs to be seen to be believed.

Much of that exhilaration belongs to cinematographer Hong Kyung-pyo, whose credits include 'Parasite' and 'Burning'. His camera glides, swings and tracks through the mayhem with extraordinary assurance, making even the most frantic movement legible. With much of the action unfolding in daylight, the choreography has nowhere to hide. Kim Sunmin’s editing sustains the momentum within these sequences, while Michael Abels’ score moves from ominous unease to mounting agitation. The filmmaking craft is frequently without peer.

The creature effects are a less consistent achievement. Their conspicuously digital appearance occasionally jars against the weight and texture of the surrounding destruction, particularly when the film slows enough to invite scrutiny. Motion serves them better than contemplation. The elaborate transformations also make unusual use of an international cast including Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander and Taylor Russell, whose presence is hardly the conventional Hollywood reinforcement their billing might suggest.

For all the actors’ personality, the characters remain somewhat underdeveloped. Hwang makes Bum-seok’s alternating bluster and panic engaging, but the film offers little space to deepen its central relationships. There are provocative intimations that human cruelty has helped unleash the catastrophe, and that the supposed monsters possess fears and feelings of their own. These complicate the violence without quite supplying the emotional weight the later revelations demand.

'Hope' may therefore fall short of the hopes of those who have spent close to a decade waiting for Na’s next film. Its sprawling mythology and thin characterisation make it less satisfying as a whole than its finest passages promise. Yet the sheer command of those passages is undeniable. This is a singular cinematic vision, excessive enough to frustrate and exhilarating enough to forgive, which confirms Na as one of the best auteurs working in Korean cinema.

Movie Rating:

(Wildly ambitious and technically dazzling, 'Hope' delivers breathtaking action despite thin characterisation and uneven storytelling, reaffirming Na Hong-jin as one of Korean cinema’s most distinctive auteurs)

Review by Gabriel Chong