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Clarence Tsui

2/5 stars
If South Korean director Na Hong-jin had wanted to give his latest movie an even snappier title, it might be Run. Through long stretches of this two-and-a-half-hour action extravaganza, humans and aliens race down small-town streets, through forests and along highways, as if daring the viewer to – sorry – hope when and where this is all going to end.
Except that it does not.
By introducing a slew of new threads in the final reel, Na seems to be shaping Hope as the first of a franchise. But the director has a lot of convincing to do to make it happen, as this first instalment is a high-octane, low-on-substance spectacle weighed down by a half-baked premise and bad CGI.


Reuniting with Na after their collaboration on the 2016 horror hit The Wailing, Hwang Jung-min plays Bum-seok, the police chief of a remote Korean town who is called to investigate the mysterious mutilation of a cow.
He belittles local villagers for being clueless, trigger-happy hicks but his arrogance dissipates as he drives back into town to discover pulverised buildings, gutted marketplaces and mutilated corpses scattered everywhere.
Here, Bum-seok embarks on what is probably the set piece of the film: for the next hour, he dashes through the town’s chaotic streets, hunting down – and then being hunted by – the beast responsible for all the mayhem.
Na begins Bum-seok’s protracted cross-town sprint promisingly, as he manages to maintain suspense by keeping the monster unseen.

Bum-seok can only guess what awaits him as he walks through scenes of abject carnage and hears petrifying howls from the supernatural beyond; he also witnesses comically over-equipped gunslingers end up crashing and burning against walls.
But once the creature finally shows its face, the game is up. For a film that reportedly boasts the highest production budget in the history of Korean cinema – exceeding 50 billion won (US$37 million) – the monster’s crude appearance and sputtering movements beggar belief.
Problems worsen as the film spirals into a mass of contradictions with its attempts to explain what these shape-shifting life forms are and why they are here.

By setting the film at a border outpost, where signs and banners demand public vigilance against spies and indoctrination, Na seems to have wanted Hope to carry some kind of social metaphor.
Is it about xenophobia? Or about the authorities prioritising hunting down enemies within rather than saving their people from real and immediate harm?
It is none of the above, as these solemn-sounding red herrings are cast aside and forgotten, replaced by the missteps and misadventures undertaken by Bum-seok, his sharpshooting underling Sung-ae (Squid Game breakout Jung Ho-yeon) and the no-nonsense huntsman Sung-ki (Zo In-sung) as they seek salvation from all this mess.
At least their admirable zeal in hyping up their characters’ fear and anxiety helps salvage Hope from being a lost cause.
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Jung Ho-yeon (front) and Hwang Jung-min in a still from Hope.

Hwang Jung-min as police chief Bum-seok in a still from Hope (Korean, English), directed by Na Hong-jin. Jung Ho-yeon and Zo In-sung co-star. 


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A promising beginning and strong performances are not enough to save Hope from being a messy spectacle with woeful CGI monsters


A promising beginning and strong performances are not enough to save Hope from being a messy spectacle with woeful CGI monsters.


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.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}A promising beginning and strong performances are not enough to save Hope from being a messy spectacle with woeful CGI monsters

A promising beginning and strong performances are not enough to save Hope from being a messy spectacle with woeful CGI monsters