'Hope' Review: A Ferociously Entertaining Creature Feature
After making a sizeable splash with films like ‘The Wailing’ and ‘The Yellow Sea’, director Na Hong-jin is back with his new feature HOPE, a ferociously entertaining creature feature that offers plenty of high octane thrills.
‘Hope’ takes place in a remote town where a mysterious and terrifying discovery is made on the outer rim that puts its residents in a fight for their lives against horrifying creatures they have never seen the likes of before. Hong-jin has assembled a fantastic cast here including Hwang Jung-min, Zo In-sung, Hoyeon, Cameron Britton, Alicia Vikander and Michael Fassbender.
Creature features are a dime a dozen, but Hong-jin has crafted an entry into the genre that is not only wholly unique, but one of the most entertaining in quite some time. His direction is astoundingly confident and assured, staging and orchestrating incredible action set pieces that showcase a wonderful hybrid of practical and visual effects as they deliver visceral, blood-soaked mayhem that truly needs to be seen to be believed. The first hour or so is masterful filmmaking, largely obscuring the creatures and letting their destruction and the performances from this talented cast sell the terror. The film is relentlessly paced, but Hong-jin never lets it slip away from him, never losing sight of its colorful and eclectic core characters as he consistently puts them in precarious situations including an extended chase sequence in the third act that is one of the best to hit the big screen in recent memory.
The performances are terrific all around, especially from Jung-min and In-sung, the former playing a local police officer thrust into the chaos while the other steps into the shoes of a hunter attempting to track down and kill these creatures on the outskirts of the remote town. Jung-min does a wonderful job at not only selling the horror, but providing a sizable amount of laughs as well, showcasing an officer who clearly hasn’t seen much in the way of danger during his career. In-sung walks away with the film though, excelling during the action set pieces and radiating a likability and gruff charm that makes him a notable standout. Their respective stories are equally compelling as they both encounter these creatures in different circumstances and make their own shocking discoveries along the way.
Hong-jin also does an admirable job building and establishing the lore and mythology surrounding these mysterious creatures, not only delving into where they possibly came from, but showcasing a wide variety of them throughout the film. While the CGI and visual effects are certainly rough around the edges to say the least, the way in which they are incorporated into their surroundings and are integrated into the film’s dizzying set pieces on the whole is exceedingly well done. However, there are several instances in which the quality of the CGI unfortunately takes the viewer out of the experience, where the relatively janky quality of the visual effects can be a hindrance to the stakes Hong-jin is trying to sell.
The film also has a beefy runtime, clocking in at over two and a half hours. Unfortunately, the length can be felt especially in the last act of the film that feels as if it’s stretched far beyond where it should’ve concluded. It also doesn’t help that a fair amount of the film’s conclusion focuses on trying to build to a cliffhanger that simply doesn’t work nearly as well as it should due to a dense mythology Hong-jin is trying to feed to the audience in a truncated amount of time. While the back half of the film remains highly entertaining, it’s simply not as compelling or enveloping as its more intriguing first half, elevated by the game performances and handsome craftsmanship.
‘HOPE’ is one of the most refreshing and exciting new creature features to come around the bend in a very long time, blending incredible action filmmaking with engaging sci-fi storytelling in a way that is not only accessible, but deeply immersive. As with any film as ambitious as this, it’s not without its shortcomings, but the world Hong-jin has created and the thrills he’s able to deliver are unlike anything audiences have seen. If this film makes anything abundantly clear, it’s that he is absolutely one of the most exciting genre filmmakers working today who is more than deserving of far more high-profile projects.