In a rural village of Hope, near the DMG in South Korea, police chief Beomseuk (Hwang Jung-min) finds the town in total destruction and mayhem- it's as if a tornado tore through. There's talk of the Siberian tiger as the main suspect. But the trail of destruction suggests the largely unseen (at least the first 30 minutes of the film) predator(s) might be something bigger. And the thought of a smart large cat from the north wading through the minefield of DMZ is not very plausible. Various village hunting parties, armed with hunting rifles in beat up pickup trucks, are on its tracks, as well as Beomseok and his very capable, pretty deputy Sung-ae (Korean model Hoyeon, seen in Squid Games). It turns out that the monsters are not of this world but possibly the cosmic kind.
Hope is pretty much extremely visceral chase scenes strung together with iffy rural Korean humor thrown in. The film's many, unrelenting and prolonged car/horse chase sequences are truly impressive and need to be seen in theaters on the big screen. Director Na Hong-jin, if his two previous films (Chaser and Yellow Sea) were any indication, really has a knack for orchestrating big scale chase sequences. And this time, with the help of CG effects.
Hope is funnier and less fatalist, miserablist than Na’s last film, Wailing. But it suffers the same wayward, unfocused messiness. The garish creature design is a mix of the practical effects of The Thing and early 90s CG of The Lawnmower Man, where they put on the likeness of Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander and Taylor Russell. Why was this necessary? To appeal to the global audience because it's a big budget sci-fi and they got money to burn? But instead of slick sci-fi blockbuster, Hope is a Korean movie through and through- bumbling, incompetent police, buckets of totally inappropriate toilet humor, general messiness of the lives of common people; Their self-awareness made into a punchline- "I never been on an airplane, but I am inside of a spaceship!"
I have so many questions: why does it have to take place near a DMZ, if it never adds anything to the narrative or even plot point? What's the purpose of the aliens being there? Why is the mother ship going down? Maybe Hope's point is that all these unbelievable celestial events are happening to these rural Korean folks because it's more fun watching them dealing with it than more jaded city folks? There's more seeming humanity in common folks' lives than we give them credit for? Korean cinema excels in this, time and time again, emblematized by the films of Bong Joon-ho and countless K-Dramas, where everyday funny folks with their messy lives and misery are always the heroes of the story. I used to think it was a populist pandering, but lately I realize that this IS the heart (pun intended) of Korean storytelling.
Hope might not be satisfying narratively. But it's a cinematic experience. Go see it big.
