Na Hong-jin’s “Hope,” premiered in Competition at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival, arrives with huge expectations and a running sense of escalation—until the creature reveal and later CGI-heavy stretches expose major problems. The film, described as an extremely
When “Hope” opens with a dead cow in a road—paired with a town that feels close enough to the DMZ to be surrounded by landmines—the excitement comes fast.. But the spell doesn’t last.. The film. directed by Na Hong-jin and framed as a massive Korean event. reportedly carries a rumored budget of ₩50 billion (about $33 million USD) and still feels like it spends more than it should without delivering enough when it counts.
The story drops its first jolt in Hope. a backwater port town near the DMZ that’s supposedly plastered with posters warning people to watch out for spies.. A local hunters’ crew notices the carcass—clawed by something huge but otherwise intact—reeks of old fish.. Power-tripping police chief Bum-seok (Hwang Jung-min) reads it as evidence of a rare tiger attack and orders the hunters to search the forested mountains for clues.
That assumption falls apart almost immediately.. Before Bum-seok can get far. the danger reveals itself in concrete. terrifying details: the gaping hole in the side of Hope’s real estate office. and the series of obliterated human corpses strewn across the town’s narrow alleyways.. The movie’s chaos builds toward a “gleefully frenetic mega-setpiece” that tracks Bum-seok chasing—and often being forced to run away from—whatever force has turned the town into a warzone.
It’s during this stretch that the film’s craft seems to briefly peak.. Na choreographs the catastrophe street by street. intersection by intersection. with bright daytime cinematography from Hong Kyung-pyo on Hong Kong?—no. on wide-screen splendor that keeps the visual momentum lively.. The report also emphasizes how tangible the action looks. pointing to ceramic tiles breaking apart in the middle of the destruction. and crediting the director for shooting in real locations.. Along the way. the film brings in other key figures. including Jung Ho-yeon’s Sung-ae. a chipper young cop who loves large machine guns. and it folds in a recurring joke that the old-timers in Hope are “armed to the teeth” and ready to defend the town from… “whatever.”
The tension is set up so neatly that the first good look at the creature after about 45 minutes lands as a turning point—and not in a way that satisfies.. The narrative in this review notes that the creature reveal makes it clear why Na tried to delay it. while also triggering an immediate wish that the film had hidden it even longer.. The disappointment described is blunt: the CGI is called among the worst creature effects the writer has seen recently. including comparisons drawn to Syfy-style creature work and to earlier franchise moments like “The Mummy Returns. ” as well as the feeling that the creature clips around its Jeju Island set “with all the credibility of a glitch in a computer game.”
By the time the film pushes beyond its initial hour, the momentum can’t hold.. The review argues that after the first hour’s momentum, the rest of “Hope” becomes as unimaginative as its monster.. It describes a sluggish second act that shifts toward a creature autopsy and drawn-out human detail. and says one-note characters—such as a poop-obsessed local ginseng hunter. an imbecilic yokel. and a puffed up mayor—don’t become interesting on their own. even if Hwang and Jung bring enough energy to keep the central roles from collapsing in the same way.. Zo In-sung’s village hunter is singled out as getting the worst of it. landing in a space “between a supporting part and a lead” and being “done dirty” by the film in a way that only turns amusing once the expectation becomes that the movie is a goof.
The later setpieces are said to move again—this time in the wooded forests of Romania’s Retezek National Park—but the review claims the visual effects reduce even inspired moments into “very bad video game cutscene” territory.. One model is described as a dead ringer for the Licker from “Resident Evil 2,” appearing copy-pasted from 1998.. Alongside the CGI complaint. the piece says the filmmaking struggles to prop up the later action. and it argues the movie also misses on the basics of its “barebones fable” about reactionary violence and fear of the other.
The cast is present in the review even when the story’s interest is questioned.. The writer says it’s a “shameless” attempt to frame “Hope” as the first in a franchise. and notes that Fassbender appears alongside Alicia Vikander. Cameron Britton. and Taylor Russell. but claims that nothing about the more mysterious characters is shared enough for them to land emotionally.
“Hope” might have remained a compelling experience if it had kept its earlier level of quality after the big reveal; instead. the review says Na can sustain the momentum for only a few minutes before the movie turns into a disappointment.. Bad films happen even at major festivals. but the review says this one hurts because it gives you “the hope of being great” before the wheels fall off.. The verdict lands at Grade: D+.
The pattern in the review is unmistakable: the same film that builds a tightly escalating. street-level chase before delaying the first creature look for roughly 45 minutes is then described as unable to maintain that earlier level of quality. with later setpieces and creature work relying harder on CGI even as the story slows and the characters fail to generate care.
“Hope” premiered in Competition at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival, and NEON will release it in theaters.
Na Hong-jin Hope Cannes 2026 NEON Hwang Jung-min Jung Ho-yeon Zo In-sung Michael Fassbender Alicia Vikander creature effects CGI