Na Hong-jin’s “Hope” is one of the most uproariously ambitious films as we’ll see this year, maybe even this decade. Still, its 156 minutes feel like just enough to scratch the surface of what this outlandish creature flick’s world has to offer. In the first film of what he hopes will become a multi-part franchise, Na gives us only glimpses of what lurks beneath, yet provides a run-and-gun extravaganza that rivals even the most thrilling Hollywood blockbusters.
While Na’s last film, the 2016 horror masterpiece “The Wailing,” opened with a fisherman skewering a live bait worm, “Hope” begins with an animal that has already taken its last breath: a cow, cut open in the middle of the road and covered in feasting flies. Thankfully, Hope Harbor’s police chief Ko Bum-seok (Hwang Jung-min) is on the case of the soon-to-be bulgogi alongside his eager second cousin, Sung-ki (Zo In-sung).
Together with the decidedly unhelpful locals who discovered the animal, the pair attempt to deduce how the bovine could have ended up shredded in the middle of the road. They consider the possibility of a bear, but deem the claw marks too big. A tiger is another possibility, supported by a local legend of such creatures coming to steal food from across the border, but this road is just miles south of the Korean Demilitarized Zone. Na draws our attention to signage with mottos like “Protect the nation from infiltration,” and land mines surround the entire area, so that theory doesn’t hold up either.
This location, of course, is no random choice. If Amity Island was a seaside idyll ripe for disaster in “Jaws,” then Hope Harbor, inhabited mostly by the elderly and close enough to North Korea that any person could plausibly be an infiltrator, is perhaps an even likelier setting for catastrophe.
There is something different here than in other Korean border dramas. Take Park Chan-wook’s “Joint Security Area,” a cinematic exploration of how humanity begins to seep in when North and South are brought together. Na, however, seems to be making the opposite point, using a representation of something adamantly inhuman to characterize the fear that has resulted from the two sides being kept apart.
The opening scene is akin to the ‘bomb under the table’ concept in Hitchcock’s famous lecture on suspense. Once this metaphorical bomb goes off, and the beast’s first roars are heard from the harbor, all hell breaks loose. Hwang’s work wins the audience over — Bum-seok is brave but generally in way over his head, at multiple points too scared to enter buildings where danger may be lurking.
Along the way, we see what’s left of the local militia, somehow all better armed than the Korean military — what’s a rocket launcher like you doing in a place like this? Even with the help of Ahn Nak-yeon (Lee Sang-hee), a bow-and-arrow-carrying elderly man with whom Bum-seok clearly has a history, and Im Sung-ae (Jung Ho-yeon), who takes the cake for the year’s most badass entrance, the monster continues to destroy all in its path. Credit goes to production designer Lee Hwo-kyoung, whose work renders each alley’s destruction with delightful intricacy.
But when the alien-and-mouse game does end, there’s disappointment both in the loss of tension and in what this agent of terror turns out to be: a towering extraterrestrial that looks to have been rendered on an Xbox 360. Whenever the creature is on screen, there’s a dissonance between its presentation and the real-life backgrounds that is difficult to overcome.
Regardless, the day goes on and the plot moves to the forest, its ominous overgrowth beautifully rendered by veteran cinematographer Hong Kyung-pyo (“Parasite”). Mostly, the audience is left on their own, holding on for dear life as the plot unfolds amidst the greenery. Following in the lineage of films like “Mad Max: Fury Road,” it’s a thrill ride that, despite functioning on an allegorical level, leaves no room for unnecessary character detail.
As the sun goes down, we learn from the venerable ginseng hunter Mr. Hae-sul (a captivating Im Hyun-shik), in a feces-filled flashback, that the threat might be aliens … plural. What follows is something like the Endor chase scene in “Return of the Jedi” if it had been shot by Sam Peckinpah — a gonzo encounter of the third kind filled with machine gun fire and glorious adrenaline.
Problems with the film only arise later on, when Na’s lack of exposition eventually catches up to him and we are subjected to a nearly incomprehensible, lore-filled dialogue between two CGI characters (real-life Hollywood couple Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander did the motion capture). It turns the story entirely on its head, and despite the new storytelling avenues that may result — Na announced at the Cannes Premiere that part two has already been put to paper — it’s ultimately too much information in too little time, turning the red-hot stakes into something closer to inconsequential setup.
It’s hard to say where things will go from here, both in Hope Harbor and in the real world. Despite its status as the most expensive film in Korean history, “Hope” had a massive domestic opening which has been followed by strong international legs, so a sequel could well be in the works.
Though viewers may be rightfully frustrated with the film’s imbalance, far fewer will leave without at least wanting to discover what could be coming next. Night is just beginning to fall, and there’s a long road ahead, so who knows what the ever-unpredictable Na may have in store?
