Review: Na Hong-jin’s 'Hope' Will Have You Saying ‘Sibal’ Every 10 Seconds

There are films you watch for the plot, films you watch for the performances, and then there is Hope, which will have you sitting at the edge of your seat, muttering ‘sibal’ every 10 seconds and wondering what on earth you just witnessed. Na Hong-jin’s monster movie is violent, chaotic, occasionally ridiculous, and an absolute thrill ride. Is it a perfectly put-together film? Not quite. Did I have a ridiculously good time watching it? Absolutely.

Set in a small South Korean town near the Demilitarized Zone, Hope begins with a dead bull, a series of inexplicable events, and the kind of creeping dread that makes you suspicious of literally everything on screen. For the first 15 to 20 minutes, the film keeps its monster tantalisingly out of sight, letting the destruction, the panic, and the increasingly bizarre reactions of the townspeople do the heavy lifting. You are left wondering what the hell is happening, who is responsible, and how a dead bull has somehow become the least of everyone's problems. And just when you think you have a handle on things, the film throws another curveball at you.

The beauty of Hope lies in how it builds tension before unleashing absolute mayhem. Once the aliens enter the picture, there is barely a moment to catch your breath. The chase sequences are genuinely thrilling, particularly the ones involving cars tearing through the town and humans taking on extraterrestrial creatures on horseback. Yes, horses. Watching a ragtag group of villagers and cops attempt to survive an alien invasion is the kind of cinematic insanity that reminds you why watching a film on a big screen can be such a rewarding experience. The action is drawn out, often bordering on absurd, but that is precisely where the fun lies. Every time you think the characters might finally catch a break, something else goes spectacularly wrong.

And then there are the performances. Hwang Jung-min brings a wonderfully frazzled energy to Bum-seok, the town's trigger-happy police chief, while Hoyeon is particularly great as Sung-ae, the junior cop who proves that you don't need to be the loudest person in the room to hold your own in absolute chaos. She brings a fierce, grounded energy to the role, making the high-octane chase sequences and alien face-offs all the more thrilling to watch, and more than holds her own against the larger-than-life characters around her. Zo In-sung, meanwhile, brings an infectious, roguish charm to the proceedings. The ensemble understands the peculiar balance Na is aiming for, moving between genuine terror and dark, almost cartoonish comedy without making the tonal shifts feel entirely out of place. In a film where everyone appears to be one bad decision away from getting ripped apart, that comic timing is a blessing.

Of course, no discussion of Hope is complete without addressing the elephant in the room, or rather, the very large, very angry alien. The film's visual effects have become a point of contention, and it is easy to see why. At times, the CGI creatures look oddly artificial, with their hyperreal faces and video-game-like textures making them less convincing than the destruction they leave behind. There are moments when the effects pull you out of the experience, and the film's more ambitious ideas do not always land with the clarity they deserve. The story leaves a few loose ends dangling, too, while its increasingly elaborate mythology occasionally threatens to overwhelm the sheer, gleeful chaos that makes the first half so entertaining.

But honestly, I would argue that getting caught up in whether the graphics are good or bad risks missing what makes Hope such a ride. This is reportedly South Korea's most expensive film, a project that took years to bring to the screen, and its scale is unmistakable. Na Hong-jin has always been interested in the uglier corners of human behaviour, and here, the alien invasion becomes an excuse to examine just how far people will go to survive. The humans are often as terrifying, grotesque, and unpredictable as the creatures hunting them. If anything, the film's most compelling question is not whether humanity can defeat an alien invasion, but what humanity is willing to become in order to save itself.

That does not mean every narrative decision works. The final stretch gets increasingly bizarre, and some of the film's grander ideas arrive with more confusion than conviction. Yet there is something undeniably entertaining about a filmmaker willing to swing this wildly, even when he occasionally misses. Hope is messy, excessive, and not always particularly elegant, but it has an unmistakable sense of ambition. It wants to be a monster movie, a small-town black comedy, an action extravaganza, and a meditation on humanity's capacity for destruction, sometimes all within the same scene.

And somehow, despite its flaws, it mostly keeps you hooked.

If you walk into Hope expecting flawless CGI or a tightly wound story that neatly explains every strange thing happening on screen, you might leave frustrated. But if you are in the mood for a film that makes you gasp, laugh in disbelief, grip your seat during a chase sequence, and repeatedly ask yourself what the hell is going on, this is absolutely worth your time. The performances are strong, the action is spectacularly nerve-racking, and the sheer audacity of it all is hard to resist.

My verdict? Hope may not be a masterpiece, but it is one hell of a cinematic experience. Just don't go in expecting all the answers. Go in for the chaos, stay for the horseback alien fights, and prepare to say ‘sibal’ approximately every 10 seconds.

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