Martinez Tribune The website of the Martinez Tribune.
BY TYLER HENSON
Hope (157mins)
Promoted ahead of its release as the most expensive and ambitious South Korean production to date, Na Hong-jin’s Hope is one of the most exciting action epics in years. A rowdy mixture of horror and sci-fi, featuring a dazzling array of massive set pieces, Hope is a movie of style, energy, and wickedly dark humor. It also comes loaded with a few flaws and idiosyncrasies that will give some viewers pause.
The setting is Hope Harbor, a small coastal town near the North Korean border. Local police chief Bum-seok (Hwang Jung-min) drives out to inspect some mutilated cattle in the opening scene. The injuries on the animals are puzzling. There’s talk of a tiger in the woods. Confused and nervous, Bum-seok returns back to Hope Harbor and discovers a catastrophe already in progress. An unidentifiable beast is literally tearing through the entire town, and mowing down most of the population in its path.
Kicking into high gear with no further setup, what follows is a forty minute sequence of Bum-seok chasing the monster across town. Seized by panic and stunned by the destruction, he has hardly a chance of surviving until another officer, Sung-ae (Squid Game’s Hoyeon), rolls in locked and loaded. The chase builds to a crescendo of roaring engines, blazing guns, and frenetic speed, hitting like a pure rush of adrenaline.
It’s best to go in not knowing too much about the plot, but some criticisms must be mentioned. The CGI effects work, which varies in quality throughout the film, has met with divided opinion. This critic saw the movie twice. The first time, the CGI did appear rough and distracting, though not enough to spoil the experience. The second time, the film was just as exhilarating, but somehow the effects became less bothersome.
The erratic CGI, used almost exclusively for creature effects, is arguably redeemed by the tactile stunt work surrounding it. Cars fly through streets and alleys with pulse pounding velocity, and when the actors hang halfway out the windows firing machine guns, they appear to be doing it for real. There’s remarkable kinetic flow to the filmmaking. Camera movement stays clean and smooth, even with the pedal-to-the-metal, and the editing doesn’t overwork to hide any seams. Choreography and composition provide the necessary propulsion.
Like his better known contemporaries in South Korea, Bong Joon ho (Parasite) and Park Chan-wook (No Other Choice), director Na Hong-jin enjoys freely blending genre and contrasting tone. He’s long been a master of action and suspense; anyone who enjoys a gritty, gripping thriller ought to check out his first two movies – The Chaser (2008), about a nightlong hunt for a serial killer, and the sprawling crime epic The Yellow Sea (2010), where an ordinary man agrees to perform an assassination to get out of debt, only to be caught up in a desperate fight for his life.
Na’s audacity really burst forth in his last, and most successful movie, The Wailing (2016). That film followed an investigation into inexplicable events in a remote village, and was a singular mixture of broad comedy, supernatural horror, and police procedural. Hope is a work of similar boldness. High octane action and tragic drama are laced with an almost slapstick absurdity. The characters are prone to comic bumbling and exasperation, and the carnage surrounding them is often played for grim laugh, meaning a single scene might be chilling and hilarious at once.
Na also makes some highly unusual story choices in his screenplay. It’s tricky to discuss without resorting to major spoilers. To keep it vague, there’s an interlude in the action for the central portion of the movie, and this is where the story begins to open up. Out in the woods, Bum-seok’s cousin, Sung-ki (Zo In-sung), leads a band of hunters into some eerie discoveries. Suggestions and implications pile up. Before any of it can be fully explained, the film launches into another gigantic action sequence, just as exciting as the first, and then ends without further discussion.
Most of what’s really going on in this story is only hinted at, but there’s enough to figure out that a much larger storyline is playing out, mostly unseen, beyond the main plot. Within the context of this larger story, human are either insignificant or an unexplainable threat themselves. Na doesn’t overstate the subtext. He keeps things moving. But in a sneaky way, his somewhat frustrating story construction does allow him to add thematic complexity to the nonstop action.
The movie is examining how there are two sides to every conflict, and that boundaries of understanding on both sides often drive that conflict. It’s possible to look at every awesome, action-hero triumph in the film and see it as an appalling and ironic disaster from another point of view, and vice versa. There’s something brazen about this. Na has turned action movie form against itself. He’s also mastered that form to such a degree it basically still works as intended.
Put more simply, the movie offers a thoughtful statement without skimping on jaw-dropping thrills. Hope is a terrifically bumpy ride, perhaps too quirky and unwieldy for some, but it belongs in the same league as Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991) and Mad Max: Fury Road (2015). It’s an action movie of astonishing physical scale and first-rate artistry, made by a filmmaker of distinctive style, who isn’t afraid to go against the grain and push the genre into new territory.
