Hope, by Na Hong-jin, is the most ambitious Korean monster movie of the year. Ten years after The Wailing, the South Korean filmmaker unleashes a creature on a fishing village wedged between the sea and the North Korean border, and keeps the audience breathless for 2 hours 36 minutes. Selected in Competition at the Cannes Film Festival, Hope opens in French cinemas on October 28, 2026. Our pick for Halloween week.
Synopsis
In Hope Harbor, a remote port village near the Demilitarized Zone that divides the two Koreas, reinforcements leave to fight wildfires and communications go down. Police chief Bum-seok and young officer Sung-ae stay behind to protect an ageing population, while locals report a tiger roaming the hills. In the nearby mountains, hunter Sung-ki and a handful of villagers set off on the trail of the beast. The hunters become the prey.
The Hope trailer
Hope by Na Hong-jin: an hour of laughter, then the blast
A gutted cow on a country road, a swaggering police chief, villagers convinced they saw a tiger: the first hour builds a world, its quarrels and its humour. The dialogue lands, the banter flies between the chief and his rookie, and the audience laughs as much as it jumps. Na Hong-jin keeps his creatures hidden for a long time and lets fear grow in what we only glimpse. Then the beast strikes. The chase through the harbour’s narrow streets, shot by Hong Kyung-pyo (The Wailing, Burning, Parasite), pins you to your seat.
The pace never lets up. The film delivers two action sequences of nearly an hour each, and the 2 hours 36 minutes fly by. The director had Hope Harbor built for real and tears it down piece by piece: the sheet metal, the mud and the fire carry weight on screen. Between Cannes and the release, he tightened the cut by four minutes and reworked the post-production.
Na Hong-jin also plays with the viewer’s memory.
The monster ravaging the port summons Godzilla, the alien imagery nods to Avatar, the besieged villagers recall zombie movies, and this small-town police chief facing a threat from elsewhere evokes Stranger Things. The creature lurking in the shadows points to Ridley Scott’s Alien, a saga in which Michael Fassbender played the android David (Prometheus, Alien: Covenant). The hunters stalked through the forest replay Predator. These nods feed the fun and never reduce Hope to a game of references.
Beneath the spectacle, Na Hong-jin digs into his lifelong subject: violence and what sets it off. Hope Harbor lives a few miles from the border, in fear of an invisible enemy. Its inhabitants mean well and bring on disaster, because they fail to understand what they face. The arrival of Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander, Taylor Russell and Cameron Britton tips the story into science fiction.
That turn split the Croisette, between a six-minute standing ovation and baffled critics. It is the film’s strength. Na Hong-jin leaves the comfort of genre and pushes his story to a cosmic scale. The open ending calls for a sequel.
Na Hong-jin: four films, four shocks
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Na Hong-jin works slowly, and every film leaves a mark. The Chaser (2008), in which a former cop turned pimp hunts a serial killer, introduced him in the Midnight Screenings at Cannes. Then, The Yellow Sea (2010), the odyssey of an ethnic Korean taxi driver from China turned hitman, screened in Un Certain Regard. The Wailing (2016), a police investigation that turns into an exorcism in a mountain village, stands as one of the great horror films of the decade. He then produced and co-wrote The Medium (2021), directed by Thai filmmaker Banjong Pisanthanakun.
Hope marks his first selection in Competition and the first Korean film to compete for the Palme d’Or since Park Chan-wook’s Decision to Leave in 2022. The biggest budget in Korean film history, it also set a pre-sales record, with more than 200 territories. And the jury, chaired by Park Chan-wook, chose Cristian Mungiu’s Fjord.
The cast of Hope
Hwang Jung-min (Bum-seok) reunites with Na Hong-jin after The Wailing, where he played the shaman. A star of Korean cinema, he led New World, Ode to My Father, Veteran and 12.12: The Day. He gives the arrogant police chief an integrity that carries the first hour.
Zo In-sung (Sung-ki) has appeared in A Frozen Flower, The King, Escape from Mogadishu, Smugglers and the series Moving (Disney+). He plays a stubborn hunter, ready to do anything to bring the beast down.
Hoyeon (Sung-ae), who broke out in Squid Game and won a Screen Actors Guild Award, went on to Disclaimer by Alfonso Cuarón (Apple TV+). Hope gives her a first film role. Her tenacious officer drew applause from the Cannes audience on her first appearance.
Michael Fassbender, Steve McQueen’s go-to actor (Hunger, Shame, 12 Years a Slave), comes off David Fincher’s The Killer and Steven Soderbergh’s Black Bag.
Alicia Vikander, an Oscar winner for The Danish Girl, made her mark in Ex Machina and Karim Aïnouz’s Firebrand. She shares the screen with her husband.
Taylor Russell rose to fame with Trey Edward Shults’s Waves, then Luca Guadagnino’s Bones and All, which earned her the Marcello Mastroianni Award in Venice.
Cameron Britton chilled viewers as Ed Kemper in Mindhunter, before The Umbrella Academy.
Hope, a Korean monster movie for Halloween
Hope is more Korean monster movie than pure horror. It shares with The Wailing its rural terror, its battered bodies and its threat from beyond. It fits right into a Halloween night. To keep the chills going, check out our selection of Halloween 2026 movies.
Hope (호프)
Written and directed by: Na Hong-jin
Starring: Hwang Jung-min, Zo In-sung, Hoyeon, Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander, Taylor Russell, Cameron Britton
Cinematography: Hong Kyung-pyo
Editing: Kim Sun-min
South Korea, 2026, 2 h 36 min
French distributor: Universal Pictures International France
Official Selection, Competition, Cannes Film Festival
In French cinemas on October 28, 2026
More: Hope on Wikipedia
