Hope film review: Endearingly idiosyncratic
With nods to classic monster movies, this Korean action flick is carving out its own legacy
This absolutely rip-roaring South Korean actioner might ultimately prove divisive, but if you’re looking for a good time at the movies then it’s hard to top. Na Hong-jin takes the helm of a monster flick with ambition, one that’ll have you on the edge of your seat before sending you flying off it. We follow Hwang Jung-min’s bumbling police chief Ko Bum-seok, as he investigates a serious of assumed animal attacks, before the huge creature responsible unleashes hell on his village. Bum-seok is assisted by kick-ass rookie Im Sung-ae (Squid Game’s Jung Ho-yeon), while a group of hunters led by Ko Sung-ki (Zo In-sung) scour local woodlands. A western cast take on the roles of what turn out to be aliens, with married couple Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander giving motion-captured performances, alongside Taylor Russell and Cameron Britton.
There are echoes of Godzilla, the Alien franchise, Jaws and, much less successfully, Avatar here, but Hope retains its own endearing idiosyncrasy. For the vast majority of its substantial runtime, this is obscenely entertaining, sometimes masterfully directed stuff. It strikes an appealingly irreverent tone from the outset, and sensibly keeps the aliens off screen for a significant duration, as the bewildered chief legs it around his decimated village struggling to process what he’s seeing, and courageously trying to track the unseen aggressor down, despite his own always-evident terror. Hwang is sensational in these scenes, and the film gradually brings together a marvellously motley crew, with the supporting cast also superb.
There are some impossibly exciting chase sequences that benefit from a furious propulsion, including an expertly executed finale which, in the moment at least, feels like an all-timer. Meanwhile, scenes involving an extremely messy autopsy and an elderly man’s vivid and highly amusing description of a life-or-death encounter are nearly as memorable. If the two-and-a-half-hour length might seem epic, Hope easily sustains your interest. Admittedly, it’s not perfect. The aliens are original enough (the first one we meet is like a cross between a big cat and an ageing rocker), though the CGI isn’t much cop and a shift in tone and perspective at the climax is jarringly out of whack with what came before. But when the rest is this good, it hardly matters.
Hope is in cinemas from Friday 25 September.