Pursuit of an unknown entity that lays a village to waste
Jokes erupt amid extreme tension
Disappointing graphics, with a chance of later enhancement
Seven-minute standing ovation... split reactions to the ending

The long-shrouded film <Hope> by director Na Hong-jin was unveiled for the first time on the 17th (local time) at the Lumiere Grand Theatre in Cannes, France. That it managed to keep things under wraps from its 2024 wrap (end of filming) until this day may be because there is hardly an easy way to explain the film.

Between taut thriller passages, comic skits slip in, and what begins as a creature feature peers toward expansion into a cosmic-scale SF work. It is a K-blockbuster that sweeps you along breathlessly. Ten years after <The Wailing>, the film radiates the ambition of director Na, returning with his first work in a decade.

Hopo Port, a quiet fishing village within the Demilitarized Zone. A cow attacked by ‘something’ is found in the middle of a country road, grotesquely mutilated. The slashes left behind are from a hand too huge and savage to be human. To uncover the culprit, Beom-seok (Hwang Jung-min), the police outpost chief, heads into the village, while Seong-gi (Jo In-sung), a local youth who hunts with friends, moves toward the northern woods.

For roughly the first third of the 2-hour-40-minute film, tension born of the unknown drives the drama. Not only does the attacker remain unseen, the camera first shows the characters recoiling in shock, then a beat later reveals the ravaged village and the dead. The village vistas feel eerily empty, and the bodies are rendered with squirm-inducing realism. Beom-seok and Seong-gi race about in a frenzy, chasing ‘that nasty thing’ of unknown nature.

Even as the opening teems with tension, it unexpectedly carries a comic lilt. Lifelong companions in a rural community keep up their teasing banter even in dire moments. The audience kept laughing, then audibly sucking in breath, then laughing again.

Once the attacker—the ‘alien’—shows itself, the piece pivots into a creature-action-cum-SF film. Fleeing while probing for chances to strike back, the characters grow steadily more hostile toward the alien. When actor Jung Ho-yeon (as Seong-ae), well known to overseas audiences from <Squid Game>, appears in a police car and launches into a chase with the alien, applause broke out at both the beginning and the end of the sequence.

There are shortcomings in the creature design and computer graphics (CG). Actors Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander, among others, performed the aliens through motion and facial capture (a technique that renders movement and expressions in CG). The alien forms are varied, yet they evoke nonhuman characters from works such as <Avatar>, <Attack on Titan>, and <Venom>. The animation of movement also feels lacking. That said, as post-production continued even after the Cannes invitation, there is a chance the technical finish will be enhanced before official release.

It feels fresh to see action of the kind associated with Hollywood unfold against a fishing village backdrop that evokes Korea in the 1970s to 1980s. Stylish cinematography by Hong Kyung-pyo, who worked with director Na on <The Wailing>, and the collaboration of composer Michael Abels, who contributed to <Get Out>, <Us>, and <Nope>, add to the pleasure of sight and sound.

Conceived at the planning stage as a trilogy project, the film ends with the door open to sequels. Elements that invite curiosity—such as the Demilitarized Zone setting, or townspeople who, whenever Beom-seok begins to ponder something, cut him off with “That is not what matters”—make an already complex film even more intriguing.

<Hope> competes for the Palme d’Or alongside 21 other films in the Competition at the 79th Cannes Film Festival. In a lineup dominated by quiet chamber pieces this year, <Hope> stands out as a blockbuster and a genre work. Will this distinctiveness help its awards bid or hurt it? Audience members encountered on site that day offered reactions that swung between raves and bewilderment.

Andrea, a film critic from Italy, said, “The rhythm and the story of the piece were good. It was the best film I have seen (in Cannes) so far.” Karla, a Croatia-born film investor, said, “It was fun, but it went in an unexpected direction, so I am still not sure what I saw.”

When the screening ended at the Lumiere Grand Theatre that day, the audience filling roughly 2,300 seats gave a seven-minute standing ovation. Director Na offered brief remarks: “I sincerely thank you for staying to the end through such a long running time.”