Although Korean cinema’s international profile has long been dominated by names like Park Chan-wook, Bong Joon-ho, Lee Chang-dong, and Kim Ji-woon, it’s time Na Hong-jin got the same level of recognition. If you need a reminder why, go watch “The Chaser” — one of the most vicious thrillers of the 21st century.
Na, who hasn’t released a film since his 2016 genre masterwork “The Wailing,” is finally returning. Production on “Hope,” his long-gestating sci-fi thriller, quietly began in late 2023, and is now in the editing stages.
The film already boasts Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander in lead roles, but today’s casting update confirms Taylor Russell (“Bones and All”), Cameron Britton (“Mindhunter”), and South Korean stars Hwang Jung-min (“The Wailing”), Zo In-sung (“Moving”), and Hoyeon (“Squid Game”) have joined the ensemble.
Now, Variety reports that “Hope” has been dated for a summer 2026 release, with a Cannes world premiere clearly being eyed. No U.S. distributor has come aboard yet, though that’s expected to change once the film nears its festival debut.
Billed as Na’s most ambitious effort to date, “Hope” is set in the isolated village of Hope Harbor, near Korea’s DMZ. The plot kicks off with reports of a tiger sighting, prompting the local police chief (Hwang Jung-min) to investigate. But what begins as a simple rural emergency quickly snowballs into something far stranger — a cosmic mystery that tears the town’s sense of reality apart. Fassbender, Vikander, Russell, and Britton play extraterrestrials whose arrival disrupts the town’s fragile equilibrium, ushering in a wave of paranoia and existential dread.
Back in March, I reported that Na was taking his time in the editing room, with an enormous amount of footage already in the can. I was told the film wouldn’t be ready in time for 2025, which now appears confirmed. There was also chatter last year that “Hope” could be split into two parts, a detail absent from today’s press release.
Na’s last film, “The Wailing,” played in Cannes’ Out of Competition section and remains one of the most quietly influential Korean films of the last decade — a supernatural procedural that mutates into something far more unclassifiable. I went in cold and was floored by how deftly Na managed the tonal shifts and genre-bending. With “Hope,” he might be swinging even harder.
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