Na Hong-jin‘s Hope now has a date. Neon will open the cult South Korean director’s sci-fi feature — one of the buzziest titles in competition at this year’s Cannes Film Festival — exclusively in U.S. theaters on Sept. 9.
Hope premiered at Cannes in May to a six-minute standing ovation and a wave of sharply divided critical reaction, ranging from rapture to notes of bafflement.
The Hollywood Reporter‘s chief film critic David Rooney weighed in strongly on the positive side, describing the film as a “rip-roaring sci-fi creature feature” that “has instant cult classic written all over it.”
“It’s a great feeling to know from a movie’s first frames that you’re in the hands of an assured genre auteur,” wrote Rooney in his review from the festival. “The rare action thriller that takes place almost entirely in broad daylight, Hope pulls you in immediately with its virtuoso camerawork, pulse-pounding score, adrenalized pacing and sharply drawn characters.”
“Hope, a title whose meaning becomes clear only in the final scenes, is a superbly sustained pedal-to-the-metal experience that’s almost dizzying in its bravura,” he added.
Set in the fictional border town of Hope Harbor near the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), the film follows police chief Bum-seok (Hwang Jung-min) and officer Sung-ae (Hoyeon) as they hunt a mysterious creature laying waste to the village, while a band of hunters led by Sung-ki (Zo In-sung) tracks the beast through the surrounding forest, only to become its prey. What begins as misjudgment, the synopsis teases, spirals through human conflict into tragedy on a cosmic scale.
The Korean ensemble — Hwang, reuniting with Na after The Wailing; Zo; and Squid Game breakout Hoyeon, in her first feature role — is rounded out by a clutch of high-profile Hollywood names. Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander, Taylor Russell and Cameron Britton turn up in minor but surprising supporting parts.
Hope is Na’s first feature in roughly a decade. The writer-director made his name on a trio of stunning genre standouts — the crime thrillers The Chaser and The Yellow Sea and the 2016 horror hit The Wailing — and reunites here with his Wailing cinematographer, Hong Kyung-pyo, a revered figure in the Korean industry whose other credits include Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite and Lee Chang-dong’s Burning. The score is by Michael Abels, the composer behind Jordan Peele’s Get Out and Nope.
Na has conceived Hope as the first chapter of a potential franchise. At two hours and 40 minutes, it’s undoubtedly lengthy for a commercial action film — but the record presales achieved by Korean producer Plus M Entertainment at Cannes suggest distributors are expecting the spectacle will translate strongly beyond the festival circuit.
Plus M pre-sold Hope to roughly 200 territories, a record for a Korean title. Plus M said the deals have allowed Hope to recoup nearly half its net production budget ahead of release. Neon, which boarded North America, the U.K. and Australia before Cannes, is joined by Mubi (Germany, Spain, Italy and Latin America), Focus Features (France, with UPI France, plus Benelux and South Africa) and Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions (Portugal, Scandinavia and the Middle East, among others), with Japan’s Gaga and India’s Star Ent. also aboard. For several buyers, it marks a first-ever Korean acquisition.
A Korean release for Hope is set for this summer, ahead of the U.S. bow on Sept. 9.
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