Na Hong-jin’s ‘Hope’ Rocks Cannes With Alien Mayhem

Na Hong-jin hasn’t made a film in ten years. Cannes just made up for every one of them.

The Korean writer-director’s long-awaited return, Hope, premiered at the festival Sunday night to a seven-minute standing ovation — an almost absurd response for a movie that features alien invasions, elderly villagers hiding machine gun arsenals, and a high-speed horse-to-police-car chase sequence that has to be seen to be believed. But then again, Hope is not your average science fiction film, and Na is not your average filmmaker.

“I’m really nervous,” Na said in an interview alongside the Cannes beach just hours before the premiere. “I didn’t imagine it would be so nerve-wracking to be honest, to the point of not sleeping.”

He didn’t need to worry.

What Is ‘Hope,’ Exactly?

Set in Hope Harbor, a remote rural village near South Korea’s heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone, the film opens with something deceptively small: a dead bull, its carcass mysteriously scarred. Local police chief Bum-seok (Hwang Jung-min) goes to investigate what he assumes is a tiger, and from there, the movie never stops moving. For forty unbroken minutes, an unkillable giant monster tears through the village — ripping citizens apart, destroying buildings, racking up a body count — and you never actually see the creature. It’s a breathless, real-time chase sequence that makes up essentially the entire first act.

The eventual reveal of what’s actually going on is where Hope makes its craziest leap: this isn’t a monster movie. It’s a full-scale alien invasion from the planet Gh’ertu, and the extraterrestrials come in all shapes and represent distinct class divisions from their home world. The scale keeps growing from there, accumulating into what Na himself describes as “a cosmically grand, audaciously gonzo” sci-fi tale — one that somehow also has a lot to say about xenophobia, perspective, and the misunderstandings that drive catastrophe.

“I started off with a focus on xenophobia and immigrant problems,” Na explained. “As I was developing the story, it became a much bigger story. In any big tragedy, they don’t necessarily arise from malicious intention. It all starts with difference in perspective. I think it’s that conflict in perspective or misunderstanding that creates these collisions. That’s what I wanted to talk about.”

The film runs two hours and forty minutes. It earns most of them.

Fassbender and Vikander, Playing Aliens — Because She Said So

One of Hope‘s most delicious surprises is the casting of Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander, and Taylor Russell as members of Gh’ertu’s royal alien family — rendered in CGI, playing the film’s antagonists. It’s a genuinely unexpected pivot for a movie that starts as a very grounded Korean village thriller, and the story of how they ended up there is almost as entertaining as the film itself.

It started with Vikander, who attended the Busan Film Festival early in her career and fell hard for Korean cinema. She began developing a separate project with Na, but the conversation eventually turned to the alien film he’d been quietly working on for a decade. Na only had roles for extraterrestrials. “I was intrigued. I didn’t think. I said ‘Yes!’” she beamed at the Cannes press conference Monday.

As for Fassbender — her husband — his reasoning was considerably simpler. “Alicia told me to do it!” he said, to a room full of laughter. “He listens to me!” Vikander shot back.

The Shame and Prometheus actor said he was also genuinely drawn to Na’s unpredictability as a filmmaker. “You don’t know what’s coming next,” Fassbender said. “He’s mixing genres — comedy, then absurd, then very real.” At the press conference, he offered a thoughtful read on what makes the alien characters work: “They want the same thing — protecting their young, protecting the future of their young. The similarities between us and aliens is what we look at in the film.”

Taylor Russell, who was brought in through Vikander as well, said landing the role felt almost inconceivable. “I wouldn’t even cast myself in any of his films because it feels inconceivable, so when the call came… it made me think this would be a fun ride,” she said. “It would be great to do more Korean films, and maybe speak Korean as well in the future.”

Na said none of it was a package deal — he genuinely sought out each actor. “I really admired Michael and wanted to work with him,” he said. “Michael, Alicia, and Taylor — all these three characters really have their own world.”

The Cast That Showed Up Because It’s Na Hong-jin

For the Korean stars of the film, the draw was simpler still. Hwang Jung-min, one of South Korea’s biggest stars and a veteran of Na’s 2016 thriller The Wailing, was the first to sign on. The two had talked about working together again almost immediately after that film wrapped. Asked why he wanted to do Hope, co-star Zo In-sung was refreshingly blunt: “Because it’s Na Hong-jin. Nothing else.”

Hwang was equally direct — with a punchline attached. “Among the actors, we have this faith in the director that whatever movie he does, he’ll do a good movie,” he said, before deadpanning: “But I don’t think he knows that many good actors.”

Squid Game‘s Jung Ho-yeon rounds out the central trio as Sung-ae, a rookie officer whose entrance — slow-motion, grenade launcher in hand — reportedly had the Cannes audience cheering out loud. Her pairing with Hwang’s blustering, terrified-but-capable chief turns out to be one of the film’s most enjoyable dynamics.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Vt7860xZFXk%3Fsi%3Dye7iCA3qIo6N9EkP

What Critics Are Saying

The response out of Cannes has been loud, enthusiastic, and occasionally bewildered — which feels entirely appropriate for a film this unclassifiable.

Variety’s Jessica Kiang called it “hilarious, unwieldy, overlong and featuring some of the most breathtakingly elegant action moviemaking of this or any year.” Deadline said it “never lets up for a minute of its two-hour, 40-minute running time and out-Hollywoods anything of its kind made by Hollywood.” TheWrap called it “the all-time great new action film” with “more magnificent moments in its opening act than most do in their entire runtime.” The Hollywood Reporter praised its “magnetic principals,” “cheeky sense of humor” and “thrilling action,” calling it “a crazy good time.”

The one consistent note of criticism: the CGI. Na was racing to finish the edit in time for Cannes, and reviewers have noted that the creature effects don’t always hold up. Notably, Na himself apparently acknowledged at the premiere that the film runs a shade too long. But with Neon distributing stateside and a theatrical release planned for the fall, there’s a reasonable expectation the VFX will be polished before most audiences see it.

The score, by Michael Abels — who also composed for Jordan Peele’s Nope — has drawn particular praise, and the comparison to Peele’s film isn’t entirely coincidental: both deal with humans confronting something alien and unknowable, and both are more interested in the human response than the monster itself.

A Sequel Is Already Written

Na didn’t come to Cannes with just one movie in mind. At Monday’s press conference, he confirmed what he’d hinted at in earlier interviews: a sequel is already scripted. “I think you can readily imagine this sequel. And there’s a script that’s already been done that I’d like to shoot. So if I have the opportunity, I would indeed make a sequel if possible,” he said.

The follow-up, set in space and more centered on Fassbender and Vikander’s alien characters, represents the part of the story Na ultimately decided not to include in the first film. He apparently got so excited describing how part two ends at one point that his publicists had to shush him.

Na noted that it took ten years to get Hope to the screen — between the epic scope of the story, an editing process that stretched on, and CGI that “took forever.” “It didn’t feel that long to me. I only realize now that it’s been quite a journey,” he said with a sigh.

Jung Ho-yeon, for one, hopes the Cannes moment changes things for him. “He has such a cool filmography,” she said. “It will be nice if he can have a much wider audience.”

Hope opens in the U.S. later this year via Neon. Given the reception on the Croisette, it won’t be arriving quietly.