Welcome to the second of 22 installments to a series I've dubbed 'Evaluating Cannes' Competition', where I will be going through and reviewing each of the 22 films that played in competition for the right to win the Palme d'Or at this year's, 2026, Cannes Film Festival.
Perhaps, once next Cannes starts, all 22 films will have premiered in the United States, I will have seen them ... and the cycle can begin all over again! We are at 17/22 films which have received confirmation of pick-up for a theatrical in the United States, and the approximately six week-long gap between 'Sheep in the Box' and 'Hope' premiering in the United States figures to be the longest of the rest of the year as a total of nine films from Cannes are slated to premiere in October or November alone.
This second film to debut for American audiences is Na Hong-jin's 'Hope', a return to feature filmmaking after eight years without one for Hong-jin after 'The Wailing', a tremendously tense, cross-genre drama about a rural community whose residents are seemingly, at random, driven to hellacious violence within their families or neighbors. The film is a useful introductory point for those interested in the director's work before seeing 'Hope', as the two films' rural settings, cop characters with a yearning towards unity and making things whole and right, and frequent, random, acts of violence that characters must react to and make meaning of parallel each other nicely and help serve as a primer for the action to come in Hong-jin's return to the silver screen.
'Hope' played in competition to a strong response from critics, tying for fifth in the Cannes jury grid by ScreenDaily, albeit, amidst some mixed messaging dispersed through the press; Variety's post-Cannes review is a nice microcosm, their reporter calling the film "hilarious, unwieldy, overlong, and featuring some of the most breathtaking elegant action moviemaking of this or any year". If what I overheard after my showing is anything to go by, it will likely be as polarizing among audiences: one 20-something said to another that this was his most disappointing film of the year, while another group of four I was seated in the same row as met the ending with a, "Oh, that's it?" -- a sentiment that will assuredly be said in every even-half-full theater this plays in for the lukewarm conclusion this film offers.
The slating of the film's CGI was also a frequent point of note, mentioned by critics and viewers alike in the wake of its festival premiere. Hong-jin would tell IndieWire that he re-edited some of the CGI sequences, including a critical reveal which marks the end of the first act, as well as other various edits to enhance the film's flow. In the post-Cannes version of the film, issues still exist with the CGI as the characters generally look fine (think Cameron's 'Avatar'-like beasts with less budget), but their movement frequently looks shoddy and our depth perception of the anthropoids' when they move, or, perhaps, in heavy action sequences with lots of camera movement or zooms, feels off. Additionally, when the film is edited to show the aliens in close, followed immediately by a shot of a human in succession, their phoniness is on full display; comparisons to video game monsters are apt.
With this acknowledged and out of the way, I can state that I was able to set aside this to a significant degree and appreciate the action direction on display without fixating on some of the perceptible flaws of these VFX. In an almost meta-way, the partially-baked monsters in their roughly formed animation, represent something even more grave to the characters: an unknowable, unbeatable force. The conclusion of the film alludes to this nicely as our human characters feel as empty as our aliens who, we learn, are primarily looking for their child, leaving hell in their wake as if it were a side effect, but I could have used more of this in the build-up if that's truly the direction Hong-jin wanted to go. While the monsters of 'Hope' in motion may not intimidate a viewer, the action on display should be plenty to appreciate as spectacle.
'Hope' opens like a house of fire. From the very first scene, the film is laser-focused on the mystery and threat of what has mutilated the cow in the road and proceeds on to destroy the town. We are almost immediately introduced to our lead, the town's police chief Bum-seok, played by Hwang Jung-min, whose character is beautifully unfurled in the first scene as he comes in with an air of pretense only to be revealed as easily scared and rather gullible. Everything unfolds from this opening act of discovery, and the film carries a significant amount of momentum with this introduction.
Hong-jin, from the jump, makes sure to frame action with tension inextricably. The first scene is, after all, the establishment of a mystery. Shortly thereafter, the discovery of a second mutilated cow within a barn on the farm the first escaped from also serves as an example of highly-tense build-up. Even though this scene serves as a calm before the storm -- there is no shootout upon the discovery of the poor maimed beast -- the build-up to the scene keeps the audience on edge, and serves to transition us into the action core of the film that is soon to begin.
One highly-effective way Hong-jin keeps tension up during action scenes is through his cinematography. Characters are frequently shown running towards the camera, away from danger or towards someone or something with real urgency. However, Hong-jin also subverts some of these shots by having characters do U-turns, or leaving the camera in place after they leave: two examples of this include an excellent shot of Bum-seok and Nak-yeon, a man he meets by almost shooting to death in a creek, as they run out from under the bridge and the camera tracking Yim's (a junior police officer, and the film's third lead), car in her introduction. The push/pull of the danger these characters face, following them as they rush towards, or flee from, it, only to be left behind as they continue onward, is a captivating cinematic technique.
In some cases, Hong-jin and cinematographer Hong Kyung-pyo ('Parasite', 'Burning') also shoot characters straight on while they should be in profile: two examples of this would include Sung-ki, Bum-seok's second cousin and the secondary lead, getting swooped up onto a white horse, or Sung-ki shooting out of the police car, for two. This gives the characters an extra sense of dynamism as it changes the point of view the filmgoer is used to seeing movement occur within.
Hong-jin also keeps this film moving, and engaging, through rapid dialogue, snappy characters, and copious side characters. While the film is framed around our three leads, Hong-jin goes through a near-revolving door of support. Sung-ki has a stable crew as he explores the forest (in an extraneous B-plot whose payoff is not worth the distraction throughout the film) but Bum-seok and Yim interact with elderly citizens taking up arms, a loner who claims to have an alien, himself, in the freezer, a forensic pathologist who calls upon a chainsaw to tear open a dead alien, and a man who describe shoving his hand up his ass to keep from alerting the aliens to his call of the wild in what must surely be the funniest poop joke of any film this decade. Characters are short with each other in the right dosage and quick to say how they feel. This complements the action nicely while standing on its own as an interesting story of Hell coming to Hope Harbor and how each of its citizens is impacted in their own way.
Final Rating: 3.5/5
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No footage in the video embedded into this blog post is my own, nor is the embedded YouTube video itself my own, and I claim no ownership or credit over it. All rights reserved to Na Hong-jin (intellectual property and ownership rights), Neon (distribution and trailer ownership rights in North America), and the copyright holders of 'Hope': © 2026 PlusM Entertainment, Forged Films Co Ltd, and Na Hong-jin. All rights reserved. This non-commercial blog plot is intended for critical and educational purposes and my usage of any material I do not own or have the license of rights to should be considered 'Fair Use' under Section 107 of the United States Copyright Act.
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