South Korean filmmaker Na Hong-jin launched his latest feature, the sci-fi creature feature Hope, at the Cannes Film Festival and almost immediately after the premiere the film has generated buzz as a potential genre classic.
Na made his name for genre favorites like the horror The Wailing, the action thrillers The Chaser and The Yellow Sea and so there’s been a lot of interest in the filmmaker’s next feature project. The hype only increased as the film was entered into the main competition at Cannes and was acquired by hip indie distributor Neon before the festival kicked off. And the buzz around Hope was then turbocharged by early social media reaction to its Cannes premiere and a jaw-dropping teaser released by Neon on Sunday.
Hope is a epic sci-fi film that takes place on the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea. The plot synopsis reads, “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.”
The cast also includes Hollywood stars Taylor Russell, Cameron Britton, Alicia Vikander and Michael Fassbender.
At Hope‘s Cannes premiere, The Hollywood Reporter’s correspondent wrote that the festival crowd “cheered and applauded during the film’s three outstanding set pieces — perhaps muting some of the response at the end of a 2 hour and 40 minute epic.” The film then received a six-minute standing ovation when it finished.
THR‘s chief film critic David Rooney raved about the film in his review out of Cannes. “It’s a great feeling to know from a movie’s first frames that you’re in the hands of an assured genre auteur,” writes Rooney. “The rare action thriller that takes place almost entirely in broad daylight, Hope pulls you in immediately with its virtuoso camerwork, pulse-pounding score, adrenalized pacing and sharply drawn characters.”
Rooney’s view tallies with the opinions of some other professional critics who saw Hope in France, but it did have its detractors, and the film currently holds a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 75 percent from only 12 reviews. It goes without saying that it is still early, and more full reviews of Hope are to be expected.
However, the reaction on social media from people who saw Hope in Cannes range from unbridled amazement to genuine bafflement, a situation that is only likely to forment interest in Na’s film.
See the early reaction to Hope below.
