Na Hong-jin's 'Hope': "I'll see for myself, no matter whether it flops or succeeds" ... What Cannes reactions revealed [2026 Cannes]

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[Financial News] "I'll see it with my own eyes, no matter whether it flops or succeeds." "What? ... The alien life form was the real monster?" "A true, old-school alien. It's a creature-plus-thriller combination."
Na Hong-jin's new film 'Hope,' invited to the competition section of the 79th Cannes Film Festival, has released its international trailer. The trailer, uploaded to YouTube on the 18th, drew a wide range of audience reactions.
'Hope' is a story that begins when Beom-seok, the head of the Hopo Port Branch Office located in the DMZ and played by Hwang Jung-min, hears from local young people that a tiger has appeared. As the entire village goes on alert, he is confronted with an unbelievable reality. In the trailer released that day, tension builds as Beom-seok faces a scene he can hardly believe. The camera then moves toward a mountain with a dense forest. Car chases, intense gunfights, and pursuit scenes through the woods lead into a tense horse-action sequence as the characters try to escape an alien attack.
In particular, the trailer revealed the alien character that had long sparked curiosity. The alien character was portrayed by Hollywood actors Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander, Taylor Russell, and Cameron Britton. Although the film cast well-known stars, it is striking and intriguing that they appear in monster-like form. According to Plus M Entertainment and Forged Films, the investment and distribution companies, on the 18th, those scenes were completed using motion capture and facial capture technology that faithfully reproduces every emotion and movement of the actors.
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'Hope' was screened at the Cannes Film Festival on the 17th local time and received a standing ovation for about six to seven minutes. Screen Daily described it as "an incredibly entertaining genre mash-up" and pointed out many similarities to Na's earlier film 'The Wailing.' Both works, it said, depict a community consumed by fear and paranoia after an unknown threat arrives from outside. The outlet also called it a large-scale genre film blending sci-fi, horror, thriller, and monster-movie elements, describing it as "an overwhelming and ambitious work."
According to Screen Daily, the Cannes version runs 160 minutes. The outlet singled out the first hour as the film's strongest stretch. It takes nearly 50 minutes before the bloodied claws of the being that devastates the village first appear, and that seems to connect with the first half of the trailer released that day. The review added that the film's expansive widescreen cinematography shines as the story shifts from the village to a grim mountain forest area where local residents go hunting. Those scenes were shot in Romania.
By contrast, Screen Daily said the limits of the visual effects become more apparent as the creature terrorizing the village is revealed more fully. "In some scenes, the monster even looks like AI-generated imagery or video game graphics," it wrote.
Deadline praised the film, saying it "delivers breathless tension throughout its 2-hour-40-minute runtime" and calling it "a bold work that outdoes Hollywood films." It also emphasized that Cannes inviting such a genre film into the official competition section is "very rare."
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jashin@fnnews.com Shin Jin-a Reporter