When one pictures a competition film at the Cannes Film Festival, an extended monologue by an elderly Korean ginger harvester describing in detail how he popped his middle finger up his behind to stop the noise of incoming diarrhea to alert 8-feet-tall aliens of his presence is possibly not the first image that comes to mind. But this careful balancing between scatting humor and classic sci-fi very much guides Na Hong-jin’s “Hope,” which landed a slot in Cannes comp a decade after the South Korean auteur got a major international boost with “The Wailing.”
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This epic sci-fi extravaganza, clocking in at 160 minutes, is set in the titular village of Hope Harbor. In this rural South Korean community, neighbors know not only every little tidbit about each other’s lives but also go back three to four generations. The lulling, predictable rhythms of farming dictate the routine of the mountain hamlet, with cows chomping at vast green fields and luscious forests filled with rabbits and root vegetables.
It is there that police outpost chief Bum-seok (Hwang Jung-min) first finds a cow violently ripped to shreds, the gigantic claw marks seeping leather into bowels far too big to be those of a bear. Perhaps a large tiger is to blame, the policemen think. What else could it be? Soon enough, as mysterious fish begin piling up on grueling murder scenes and guttural sounds echo through the narrow cobbled roads, it becomes clear Hope Harbor is dealing with a much, much bigger problem.
Director Na cleverly plays with expectation by leisurely teasing the big creature reveal. We first see the contour of its claws. Then, there are hand-shaped footprints. As it gets closer and closer to the community, we begin to hear its wailing, sharply cutting through the air with piercing anguish. When Bum-seok mistakenly shoots at local hunter Sung-ki (Zo In-sung), he at last gets a firsthand description of the ghoul: around three meters tall, green, resembling a nauseating “mix of green peas and beans.” It is only at minute 47 that we first see the creature’s large webbed hands, violently plucking a man from within a shop to his gruesome death. At minute 49, there it is in all its glory, a mix of two Guillermo del Toro creations, the Amphibian Man of “The Shape of Water” and Jacob Elordi’s elegantly angled creature from “Frankenstein.”
Following the monster’s reveal, Na offers a second grand entrance in the shape of Officer Sung-ae, played by “Squid Game” sensation Hoyeon. That introduction is straight out of the Hall of Action Movie Greats. This adrenaline-fueled car-racing sequence sends guns and rockets blazing through the quaint village and establishes the petite officer as the film’s coolest heroine. It is also a scene that taps directly into classic video game visuals, with sluggishly rendered monster movements juxtaposed against artificially looking piling rubble. This seemingly unrefined work of digital effects, which has already begun irking tech perfectionists and purists, only enhances the film’s late-90s slash early-2000s sci-fi aesthetics.
While the first hour of “Hope” revs the tension to maximum voltage, Na then shifts into an almost whiplash-inducing come down, his camera trailing the police officers and villagers as they realize the monster didn’t come to their territory alone. It is a sharp left turn that muddies the film’s expertly established momentum, with the middle section dragging on for what feels like an eternity as the story splits between following the detectives and a group of shady forest hunters. Just as the willingness to stick with it feels sparsely diluted, Na brings in the heavyweights with his trio of A-listers jumping into action: Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander, and Taylor Russell, each playing a different creature, seemingly from the same species as the first alien but with entirely separate, intricately crafted designs, developed over seven years.
Fassbender’s brute Ma’veyyo lands somewhere between Groot from “Guardians of the Galaxy” and The Thing from “Fantastic Four,” with the Oscar-nominated “12 Years a Slave” actor’s instantly recognizable green eyes peering out from a wood-like head to communicate a deep sense of woe. His real-life partner Vikander embodies J’aur in total contrast, an “Avatar”-like queen with long, delicate limbs and glossy baby-blue skin, speaking in a slow whistle akin to that of a snake charmer. Russell’s Al’dovor is mostly scarce, a young character whose main function is to establish her presence in the film’s events, so there is no confusion in the sequel.
Despite the mid-runtime ebb and an overlong runtime that works against the film’s firm grasp on the slippery tautness of good action, “Hope” still proves one hell of a time. Na’s ambitious sci-fi offering doesn’t reinvent the genre, but it does not need to. Sharply written and with impeccable comedic timing, this South Korean whopper is meticulously engineered to cater to the big screen, and those lucky enough to experience it in a packed screening room will be most privy to its blockbuster joys. [B]
Rafa Sales Ross is a Brazilian film journalist, critic and programmer currently living in Scotland. She contributes to Variety, BBC Culture, Sight & Sound among others, and can often be seen writing about Latin American Cinema and explorations of death and desire.
