source: BBC
One of the most expensive Korean films ever made, this epic sci-fi begins as a “breathless rollercoaster ride” and mashes up The Terminator, Predator, Aliens and Avatar.
The films that compete for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival are known for their depth, intelligence and political conviction. They aren’t generally known for police cars hurtling down narrow streets in pursuit of slimy giant trolls. But this year there is an exception to that rule – a wild South Korean blockbuster that is 2026’s must-see monster movie.
Hope isn’t just a monster movie, though. One of the most expensive Korean films ever made, it races from modern-day western to action thriller to horror film to science-fiction epic – all while retaining the full-throttle energy and sweaty cult-movie atmosphere of a 1970s exploitation flick. Its writer-director, Na Hong-jin, doesn’t make many films – his last release, The Wailing, was in 2016 – so maybe that’s why he has packed so much into this one.
Not that he puts in any scene-setting before the plot gets underway. The film’s hero, played by Hwang Jung-min, is the police chief of a shabby rural town named Hope Harbor, at some unspecified time that could be in the 1970s or ’80s. He has barely swaggered into view before a band of hunters tells him that a dead cow has been found with what look like deep claw marks on its body. And he has barely started his search for a rogue tiger or bear when he is thrown into something between a Godzilla prequel and a zombie apocalypse chiller. There is some kind of ogre on the rampage, and soon the policeman is following a wonderfully immersive trail of devastation all around the town.
