Director: Na Hong-jin
Stars: Hwang Jung-min, Hoyeon, Zo In-sung
Reportedly the most expensive South Korean film ever made – and with fair justification up there on the screen – Hope marks the long-anticipated return of Na Hong-jin who, in a short space of time, managed to establish himself as a bright light on the world stage of genre filmmaking. It’s been ten years since his sleeper horror hit The Wailing made it’s voice heard. His return marks him out now as the heir-apparent to James Cameron in multiple ways. If the idiom is to “go big or go home”, Na has chosen big. Very big.
It starts out small. We’re in touching distance of the North Korean DMZ, in the rurally isolated fishing town of Hope Harbour which gives the film it’s name. A posse of local hunters have called out the local police chief Go Bum-seok (Hwang Jung-min) over a grizzly discovery between the rice paddies; a dead bull bearing massive claw marks. The poor beast looks part-shredded. With rumours of a tiger working the mountains aired, Go ventures into town only to discover a trail of widespread carnage, bodies, and panicked residents hiding from “the monster”.
The opening 40 or so minutes of Hope amount to a condensed, darkly comic suspense exercise peppered with breathlessly staged stalk and chase sequences, as Go pursues a largely unseen menace through streets and buildings as though he’s a reactionary buffoon trapped in a survival horror video game. This section – the movie’s most gripping for a long stretch – is also it’s most satirical, providing a wry commentary of ineffectual gun control laws and representative of a deeply, deliberately frustrating ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ mentality spearheaded by the village’s own police force. And, given the monstrous but ultimately humanoid physicality of the creature when revealed, it’s hard not to sense an extrapolated xenophobia or more localised fear of infiltration from the North.
Having premiered at Cannes to a mixed reception, a quarter of those who rejected the film did so on the basis of it’s CG elements, which come into the light of day in the rampantly paced climax to this opening act as Go and plucky female officer Lim Sung-ae (Hoyeon) take on the menace that has decimated town; a three-metre tall troll-like creature that falls over more often than a giddy-drunk Ghostface, and is mo-capped from American actor Cameron Britton. And while there are even more jarring computer-made monsters to come in the movie’s back-pockets, dismissing it on this alone feels somewhat harsh, particularly as we’re dealing with something that’s supposed to be deliberately other. You might even call the look an aesthetic choice, just as you might the CG elements that feather Twin Peaks: The Return. Regardless, the movie greatly encourages suspension of disbelief, particularly in the levels of hysteria registered by it’s motley crew of characters.
Said crew only expands in the more leisurely mid-section of Hope which, having part-exhausted its audience, gets to work on some coy world building. The slow-down changes this beast into something Stephen King-like in pace and scope, the biggest nod here that Na’s ultimate intentions are a multi-chapter story that’ll sprawl into future instalments. The discovery in the forest of a gigantic metal ball with a Gigerian aperture feathers in shades of both Scott and Spielberg, another clear indication of the scale of influence Na is taking from western sci-fi spectacle. Indeed, for a time this is a displaced western, with its gun-toting sheriff and reckless hunting parties. Hope chops up genres as happily as the enthusiastic coroner who goes to task on a deliciously gross adhoc autopsy performed in a warehouse. Like many elements here, it is gleefully unsanitary and delivered with decidedly juvenile humour.
If the middle lacks the drive of the opening act, it is so we can recoup for the marathon (and literal) sprint to the end, which dares to envisage what Charlie Kaufman once only dreamt of; an action set-piece of “technology vs horse”. Joking aside, it’s not quite that, but it’s also not-not that. Anyone bummed that Zach Cregger left the Lickers out of his Resident Evil remix will be in heaven when confronted – again and again – with a scampering, shapeshifting nasty with a face reveal that’s surprising to say the least. A creature as relentless and gangly as the narrative it dashes through. By this point Hope has shown it’s true colours. It’s a family film, and a slick variation on the old “who are the real monsters?” narrative. And then, quite suddenly, it’s a wantonly weird alien soap opera redolent of anime, Avatar or the artwork of Björk and FKA Twigs. And then, abruptly, it’s gone, and you’re left panting in your seat wondering what the hell just happened.
If this truly is the most expensive South Korean cinema project, it’s in the spirit of the same films that take such mantles in the west. That is to say a rip-roaring escapist adventure with outright fantasy on it’s mind. Those elements manifest here in ways that feel attuned, broadly, to Asian cultural touchstones, but with casting that reflects a more global ambition. Na also borrows visually from the classics, the ancient Greek imagery of the Gorgons, specifically. All of which is to say he’s brazenly, brashly building his own epic here, shrewdly harvested from proven extant elements. If you can align yourself with the garish presentation, prepare to get swept away.
To be continued.
