Hope (2026) Film Review: A Wild Ride

Forgive Hope its obvious flaws, and a ridiculously fun time will be had with Na Hong-jin’s creative creature feature.

Hope is intense, but it couldn’t be much less cerebral if it tried. Rarely is something so silly made with so much investment by cast and crew. Its flaws are readily apparent, but that makes it easier to overcome them, and just enjoy this perky but prolonged ride. Goodness knows why it’s in Competition, but a press corps left jaded by an otherwise lacklustre lineup to this point were certainly woken up by its mile-a-minute gonzo nuttiness.

Hope opens on a wide drone shot over the Korean countryside. All is green and peaceful, but this misty landscape is about to be daubed in blood and chaos. A large bull has been attacked and killed by something unknown. Hong-jin is a master of roping his audience in by drip-feeding nuggets of information. The huge claw marks across its body couldn’t have been made by any man or known beast. The cleanup crew and cops are still scratching their heads when more calls come in of animal attacks. All this is filtered through the enthusiastic facial reactions of police lieutenant Bum-seok; Hwang Jun-min leads a game cast that helps sell the increasingly and proudly daft plot developments. Subtlety is not in Hope’s wheelhouse, and is all the better for it.

It becomes clear this thing is too big and fast to be a wild tiger. Police and vigilantes unite, and the towns they pass through have been torn apart. Hong-jin lumps his camera into the police cars and pick-up trucks that have joined the chase, but they’re always too late. The immersive blast that is the first hour of Hope is the finest action film of the year, with Jun-min chasing a trail of destruction while avoiding flying debris from the still-unseen beast. He’s joined on the hunt by shotgun wielding kick-ass officer Sung-ae (Hoyeon), and the two race in pursuit of a quarry that’s becoming increasingly dangerous and ticked off.

Much has been made of Hope’s status as the most expensive film in Korean film history. $33 million is not to be sniffed at, but what Hong-jin achieves with a sum several times smaller than a Marvel instalment is remarkable. Abandoned villages, destroyed homes and bucketfuls of blood litter the terrain, with Hong-jin conveying the scale of the terror with a handful of sets and a breakneck edit. There is a tangibility to the debris and ruined buildings that immerses.

After 50 minutes of crazed rushing about with our cop duo, our foe is revealed in all its glory, and it’s about this point that Hope begins to spend the goodwill it earned with its ambitious but skilled opening act. A large humanoid monster with green skin would inspire fear if it could be believed to actually be present in the shot. If Hope’s production design ate up a chunk of the budget, the CG effects clearly suffered as a result.

The ropiness of the big beasties could have been endearing in a ‘Bless them, they tried’ kind of way, except Hong-jin can’t escape their blatant inadequacy. Every action scene is shot in bright broad daylight, with the beasts forever darting between (and through) trees and buildings. Yet even their unfinished rendering isn’t their weirdest attribute. When main monster Ma’veyyo stops to stand in its humanoid form, you come to realize you’ve seen that face before. It’s Michael Fassbender, smiling that sharky grin from behind a motion capture suit. He’s joined by the likes of Taylor Russell and Alicia Vikander as this race of alien creatures with little beyond carnage on its mind. 

The casting of these stars as towering monsters that move with terrifying speed is baffling, and credit to the actors for taking this weird punt. However, even their notoriety can only distract from the increasingly repetitive action for so long. Sung-ki (Zo In-sung), the lead vigilante battling the beasties in a forest, gets thrown into the trees and slammed into the ground so many times that you wonder how he hasn’t been killed. The prolonged second act of Hope slowly devolves from riveting action setpiece to repetitive videogame so gradually that the viewer can scarcely notice.

After the breathtaking pace of the first half, including generous pauses for necessarily humorous respite, it’s disappointing to watch it deflate into contrivance. Meanwhile, the CG effects remain as undercooked as when they started, resembling the zombie dogs from Resident Evil if they were infected with Venom. Yet Hong-jin knows this will play all too well with the right audience. A midnight crowd full of fanboys and beer will lap Hope up. Just don’t expect its likes to be seen in Competition in Cannes again soon.

Hope premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in Competition on May 17, 2026. The film will be released in US theatres this summer.