The invasion of alien beings throws the village into chaos. Dust rises from the roads, and sand blows through the streets. People, shops, cars, everything has been wrecked.

Anti-communist slogans are posted throughout the village. References in the dialogue to Gangwon Province, near the border with North Korea, and to North Korea hint at the village’s location. Together, they evoked a sense of isolation and of being cut off from the outside world in a village near a border, never entirely free from the threat of outside intrusion, bringing a particular time and place to mind.

Even for Koreans who did not live through that era, the setting and atmosphere would still feel familiar. And placing monsters, or aliens, in such a space made it even harder to look away. Perhaps it was the unreality entering a familiar, real-world setting that gave the story an even stronger sense of reality. These contrasting elements collided and somehow formed a strange harmony. That ominous presence had not yet appeared directly before the main characters, making the audience tense as they wondered when it would emerge and in what form. Through its effective use of off-screen space, sound design, and music, the film delayed the monster’s reveal and steadily built suspense layer upon layer.

The village where all this happens is not large. Its small size and remoteness make it seem even more vulnerable. It feels as though people outside would not even imagine what is happening within, and in that moment, the fear and desperation belong only to those living in Hopo. In an isolated, closed-off place, the extremity of the situation is bound to stand out all the more. Police reinforcements show no sign of arriving, and older residents are particularly noticeable among those standing up to the alien beings. That seems to reflect the village’s population itself.

It looked like a village where the young had left for cities or elsewhere, leaving older residents behind. So, beyond the hunters and the main characters, Beom-seok, Seong-gi, and Seong-ae, it was the older residents and their efforts that stood out among those fighting the alien beings.

The actors who played those roles also seemed new to me. I had seen these older actors in the media before, but had never found them particularly memorable. Yet I found myself captivated by them here. They seemed completely immersed in the film rather than out of place, and made it possible for me to lose myself entirely in the story. I was struck once more by the director who created and placed such characters within it. Perhaps he really did have an exceptional eye for actors and a distinctive ability to direct them. 

There was also something striking about the older residents sitting in the back of a small delivery truck, moving in unison as they chased those unknown beings, monsters and aliens to human eyes. Despite the visible signs of age, they were lively and full of fervor, which made the sight all the more fresh and startling.

When Beom-seok sees the dozens of guns and rounds of ammunition loaded onto the vehicle and asks where they got them all, the older residents handle and hand them out with such practiced ease that they seem to regard his question as not worth answering. Regardless of the director’s intentions, something about them brought to mind the citizens of the 1980 Gwangju Democratic Uprising. 

The moment when someone even offers Beom-seok a potato in the middle of all that also stayed with me. It reminded me of something I once heard: even when war breaks out in a country, not everyone spends every hour of the day carrying weapons, killing or being killed. Somewhere, people live out a day much like any other. Not because nothing is happening, but because even amid such danger and terror, they are still alive, and so have no choice but to go on living that day as they always have. War, too, is part of life.

I also liked that Beom-seok voiced the surprise and doubt about where ordinary people could have found guns like these, even in such an urgent situation. As I mentioned in an earlier installment, he asked the questions viewers were likely to have. That let me move past the question rather than get hung up on it, and become more absorbed in the story.

The village was reportedly filmed in Haenam County, South Jeolla Province. The shops, signs, and overall atmosphere made it feel as though I had gone far back in time, or arrived somewhere time had stopped. The space appeared to have been recreated with that much care for its analog feel.

Meanwhile, the film’s setting also brought to mind Bong Joon-ho’s “Memories of Murder”, with its horrific murders unfolding amid rural rice paddies and fields, insects chirring, and sunsets that were sorrowful yet so beautiful. Watching alien beings reduce such a space to ruins in an instant, recognizing the roles played by famous Hollywood actors I knew, and then watching a spaceship fall through the sky above that small village, I felt as though I were watching a scene from “Arrival”, a film that had once completely captivated me, unfolding against the sky of the Korean countryside. It was a world I had never imagined before, a picture that seemed as though it should never have come together, yet I could only marvel at how beautiful, overwhelming, and fitting it was. I want to call it a genre I have never seen before: rural Korean action science fiction, an action spectacle built on suspense.

I also agreed with some of the international reviews after its North American release. The way the film built tension before showing the monster, through what had already happened and the traces of damage, brought Steven Spielberg’s “Jaws” to mind. Once the monster appeared, the dynamic action and chases through the village, churned up with sand and dirt, also reminded me of “Mad Max: Fury Road”. I found it enjoyable in a similar way. Of course, there were also negative responses pushing back against those reviews.

There were moments that made me quietly laugh, and I also enjoyed the wild comic elements that burst out in moments of life-and-death crisis. I had never once found a Na Hong-jin film enjoyable, so I was a little surprised by how well the music worked, and by how well the comedy landed. Until then, I had never watched his films and appreciated them. They either stressed me out too much or were difficult for me to sit through. I had also thought the way he handled women and child characters was truly appalling. 

Yet, when I belatedly realized that I had seen “The Chaser”, “The Yellow Sea”, “The Wailing”, and now “Hope”, all in theaters, I felt a little bewildered. How had I kept dragging myself to theaters to see them all, when I disliked them so much? In any case, there is no doubt that “Hope” is the first and only one of his films I have fallen for.

Originally published on Youni Jeong’s official website.

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