by Alex Billington
May 24, 2026
File this one under “WTF did I just watch?!” One of the most completely bonkers films to ever premiere at the Cannes Film Festival dropped midway through the 2026 edition. Cannes decided to premiere Hope, the latest by acclaimed Korean genre filmmaker Na Hong-jin, his fourth film so far, in the Main Competition at the prestigious festival (where it was competing for the Palme d’Or but it didn’t win anything). The issue is that the movie is a full-on, hard sci-fi, totally wacky, extra fun, exceptionally strange, beguiling mess. This evening press screening at the Debussy Theatre at Cannes is one of those nights I’ll never forget. An entirely packed house with a completely riled up audience went wild went it started. And then things got weird… By the end there was such a loud mix of booing and cheering it was hard to tell which one was more prominent. One thing is for sure –there is both love and hate for this movie. And it deserves both condemnation and praise. It’s the best and worst of modern sci-fi packed into a massive 2 hour & 40 minute epic adventure. I’m stuck somewhere in the middle. The more I think about it, there’s no way I can hate it. But I am also just as disappointed as many of my colleagues. It’s building up to something spectacular then crashes into a ravine.
It has been 10 years since Na Hong-jin’s last movie The Wailing, a freaky Korean ghost story that was a huge hit with critics and audiences. Before that he made The Yellow Sea and The Chaser and has been regarded as one of the best modern Korean genre filmmakers alongside Park Chan-wook, Bong Joon-ho, Yeon Sang-ho, and others. Hope is written by, directed by, and produced by Na Hong-jin and it’s clearly his passion project. It plays like his “oh hey, I can also direct a Star Wars or Transformers movie if you let me” calling card. Something big and spectacular and exciting. But it doesn’t all work, and the second half is massively frustrating. Before watching Hope in Cannes, no one had any idea what we were about to get into or where it would take us. Now we know – it’s a sci-fi action thriller about aliens on Earth who crash land in a forest near some small Korean town (called “Hope Harbor”). But it’s not an alien invasion movie. The big reveal in the story (to discover watching in theaters) is more about why the aliens are on Earth, who they are, & what happens to random townspeople who get in their way. Most of the townspeople are bumbling idiots who cause more problems than they could ever solve, which is a recurring motif in all of Na Hong-jin’s movies. That’s minor compared to everything else going. Even at the end it’s hard to understand why they’re there…
Hope is an ambitious sci-fi smorgasbord of The Host, Spielberg’s War of the Worlds, Prometheus, Super 8, and other iconic sci-fi action in cinema history. It opens with a incredibly badass non-stop 45 minute action sequence where a local cop, played by Hwang Jung-min as police chief Bum-seok, gets thrown right into the chaos of an alien creature on the run wreaking havoc in his town. It’s as awesome as the opening action scene in Spielberg’s War of the Worlds, with moments inspired by Bong Joon-ho’s The Host, as he chases down this giant extraterrestrial monster only to discover that apparently it’s running away not towards the townspeople. After that opener is over, it’s all downhill. Or maybe up and over various hills, some tumbling down scenes, some hikes that seem endless. For the next hour it’s all about investigation and trying to figure out what these things are. A group of hunters end up in the nearby woods tracking these creatures only to discover 3 of them when they eventually stumble upon their crashed spacecraft. It wraps with Na Hong-jin going all-out again with another hour long action finale, featuring horseback chases in the woods, a crazy car chase, gun battles in the forest, and more surprises. But this is when it gets super messy. The action goes on & on & on, the VFX look sloppy, the editing is jumble, the alien creatures are strange and confusing, and all of it leads to… nowhere? Wait, what is that?! Does anyone even understand what’s happening at the end?
It’s such a bewildering ending, I’m worried people might start throwing all their popcorn at the screen when they see this in theaters. Not only does it not make much sense, there’s not enough dialogue or explanation by this point, and it almost seems like one giant teaser for “tune into Season 2 of Hope at Cannes next year.” That said, I still appreciate so much of what he’s going for. It’s bonkers! In a good way! But… also in a bad way! So much of what Na throws up on screen in this nearly 3 hours of excessively entertaining action sci-fi cinema doesn’t feel fully fleshed out or organized. It’s idea after idea after idea, with no cohesion. The VFX are so bad it’s just confusing. How did this happen? How can they be this bad? Is it on purpose? Maybe it is? Maybe not? This entire movie is a step in a new direction for director Na, though he also comes dangerously close to walking right off of a cliff. I wish someone would’ve grabbed him and stopped him and pointed him in the right direction. The ideas are all there, but it seems he would’ve been better off with a few more years of reconfiguration & rewriting to have it all make sense. He even tries to reinvent the “little green men” alien concept at one point. Which is fun, until it becomes another “huh?” moment in this mishmash story. There’s also too much indulgence in goofy humor involving the townspeople that isn’t as prominent as in his other films. This seems like a mistake as well, considering the real thrills of this sci-fi story are what matter most.
That said, all of Hope is a unique creation regardless of the criticisms, and it’s something to admire anyway. Even with all of its flaws and confusing choices and weird mishaps – this movie rocks! Early on in the action opener, Korean model / actress Jung Ho-yeon suddenly appears as Sung-ae, a rookie cop, and saves Bum-seok’s butt. The entire theater erupted into a huge cheer. The fact that Na Hong-jin can pull off exhilarating moments like this, then throw it all out the window later on, is as fascinating as the story the movie is trying to tell anyway. It’s a get-the-biggest-popcorn-bucket-you-can big screen sci-fi bonanza at its most ridiculous and most entertaining. He offers a bit of both! If only he could’ve stuck the landing, this might have been an instant classic. However, right now it’s ready to become a midnight cult classic. And that might be enough. Maybe one day, if we’re lucky, we’ll finally get to find out more about what’s going on in the last few scenes.
Alex’s Cannes 2026 Rating: 7 out of 10
Follow Alex on Twitter – @firstshowing / Or Letterboxd – @firstshowing
