Ppalli, Ppalli! | Hope (2026) Review

Directed by Na Hong-jin
Starring Hwang Jung-min, Zo In-sung, HoYeon

I’m not certain, especially sitting in the pale afterglow, that there was a movie more mysterious this year than Hope. The first I saw was the teaser trailer, scrolling on whichever social media feed: stark daylight horror imagery, sweeping camera with a lens I can only describe as “big,” and the hint of some sort of monster? Okay, so, it’s directed by Na Hong-jin, which explains its opening at the Cannes Film Festival, and it’s also got Alicia Vikander and Michael Fassbender, so that makes sense. Maybe they’ll be American scientists or government officials brought in to provide exposition – oh, no, they’re aliens? Is this an arthouse movie or a weird blockbuster? And why is it almost three hours long?! The response I saw out of the festival was decidedly mixed, with criticism for unfinished-looking visual effects but praise for its thrilling action. Like, superlative praise. There was at least one and maybe two comparisons made to Mad Max: Fury Road, which frankly, only deepened the mystery. I thought this was an alien movie? What the hell is it? There is some satisfaction in finally knowing the answer, though it probably came after hour two.

Before I go any further, this is a big-screen movie, so if you have any interest in Hope, I recommend seeing it in theaters. I know, it’s a packed month, but it won’t be the same on DVD and PSP. There are shots of interesting things downrange, through foliage and so far from the camera that I could barely make them out in the second row. And on the flipside, the film is gorgeous to behold. Even beyond the explosive action, it’s like production design porn. This one’s for all you production design sickos. The setting of Hope Harbor is vast farmland, narrow village streets, and a dense forest with skyscraper trees. It’s all so immediate yet larger than life, making an undeniably fun playground for our “heroes” to run around in, waving guns. In answer to my question at the top, Hope is the movie that a bunch of 12-year-old boys make in their minds as they’re playing in the woods, holding plastic hockey sticks like rifles, but with a massive budget and direction punching way above the B-movie weight.

There are so, so many shots of people aiming guns and guns being aimed by people that you’d think it was the primordial image which set Na Hong-jin to construct a movie around it, or the movie’s meant to promote gun ownership on the peninsula. True enough, when I played pretend with my little friends in the woods, it was called “gun games.” Usually, it was sticks fashioned into guns; guns were the important thing. I recognized this logic beneath the hood of Hope like gazing into a mirror. Suddenly, all my questions had answers. “Why aliens?” “I don’t know, because we did land sharks last time. You know, sharks that go on the land.” Na Hong-jin’s already done ghosts, so why not? Even the genre malleability which makes South Korean cinema so vital – this one goes from horror to action to black comedy to space saga – feels more like improvisation. The excitement of “What kind of movie is this gonna be?” felt at the start must have been shared by Na Hong-jin when he sat down to write, when he was on set directing, when he was in the editing bay, and when he was sitting next to Michael Fassbender in France.

It’s reckless and bewildering, and that’s refreshing. I’ve seen some weird stuff at the American multiplex lately, from interdimensional dinosaurs to Rebecca Hall domming a Dan Stevens Nazi scientist, but these out-there ideas and images were delivered in otherwise stale, safe packages. Hope feels like it’s breaking rules, of genre or cinema decorum or the reasonable expectations of seasoned moviegoers. It’s unpredictable and chaotic. It’s also got something potent to offer in exchange for what it asks, as the chase sequences are as thrilling as the raves indicate. I mean, truly breathtaking action, breaking up the scenes of suspense which had me desperately searching the frame. The hapless villagers jump into their trucks and fire assault rifles at lightning-fast creatures as we zoom through the winding, devastated interiors of Hope Harbor. Again, the physically splintered village is a beautiful, immersive setting. Was this entire town tagged for demolition? Who had to clean up that mess?

By that token, the visual effects are also as bad as the raves indicate. The shading doesn’t look natural in the generous sunlight, and the movements are stiff, then unconvincingly fast. It doesn’t help that South Korea remains undefeated in creature design, just absolutely back-of-the-pack, 0/10 with monsters. It’s nothing you haven’t seen in shows like Hellbound or Gyeongsong Creature, and is actually like a mix of those two, with a bit of Quiet Place thrown in. The Host set a high bar, and nobody’s come close to reaching it now twenty years on. I couldn’t help but think of Bong’s seminal creature feature, nor Jordan Peele’s Nope, this movie’s rhyming cousin. Both of those films share this one’s ambitious scale but are more feature-complete, more obviously interested in using the sci-fi trappings to comment on the world. I don’t know what Hope is meant to be about, but it isn’t a purely thoughtless exercise.

For one, the juxtaposition of an unknowable cosmic force with small-town police – led by a scaredy-cat Chief Ko Bum-seok who toggles on his authority when personally in trouble – is thrilling. These guys are so out of their depth that it almost becomes a character study in how real people, rather than horror archetypes, might react in mind-breaking situations. And I think that becomes the central thematic preoccupation, if one can be said to exist. I’m struck by how HoYeon’s cop character is introduced whipping out an assault rifle with an underslung grenade launcher, and she’s firing off explosives and profanity, then jumps into the squad car to run the creature down not because it’s a monster but because it broke the law. She’s offended that something’s screwing everything up in town, unconcerned that it happens to be from outer space. The cavalcade of war vets, hunters, and a possible serial killer altogether suggest something deeply dangerous in our species’ reaction to the unknown. It’s hicks versus aliens, as one of the hunters laughs, “I’ve never been on a plane and now I’m in a goddamn spaceship!”

I fear I’m talking myself into liking this movie more than I did. I’m not the biggest Na Hong-jin fan, though at least his trademark meandering pace has roots in character here, with several parties encouraging Chief Ko to move, move his ass, hurry up, or get the fuck over here. The director’s unflinching violence, which I found unappealing in The Chaser, is more welcome this time around, though two characters survive beyond-fatal injuries that would’ve made Xie Maio in The Furious blush. In the end, I was left mostly dumbfounded by Hope, though that’s tempered by admiration. If there’s one thing I need to communicate in this review, it’s that the movie starts out as a high-brow approach to a monster movie before transforming into something even stranger, and that’s just as exciting to me as the films of the early Korean New Wave with their puzzlebox-but-good funhouses (of horror). If the camera work was more jittery, it could’ve easily been a found-footage mockumentary, with the utter lack of character development or scenes of exposition. It’s all just happening, and it’s a lot, whether or not you’re prepared. I’ve given away a lot of the movie here, and I have not prepared you.