I was looking forward to Hope after I saw the first trailer. Guns, aliens, a cute Asian chick; what’s not to like? It didn’t play at my local cinema, but it’s now on VoD, so I sat down to watch it last night.
I won’t spoil anything, but I will have to mention the ending.
The Story
Hope is a small fishing suburb in Korea. The local police chief doesn’t have to deal with much in the sleepy town and is called out to a report of a dead cow in the road. When he gets there, the cow has been killed, but not eaten.
At first, they think it might be a bear, but the claw marks suggest something different, possibly a tiger. He calls back in, thinking it cannot be true. As he gets back into town, all hell is breaking out, and ‘something’ is killing the population.
A game of cat and mouse starts, with the chief and the locals trying to kill the ‘something’. Some of the locals report that there is more than one.
That’s all I’ll say, as this is just the first act; it opens up a lot more as the story pans out.
The Good
Hope was stupidly good fun. The director, Na Hong-jin, knows exactly what he was doing.
Apart from Backrooms, I can’t remember the last time I felt myself looking around corners trying to see what the protagonist sees. As the chief is chasing this ‘something’, he’s afraid to look around the next corner, and so are you.
There are then moments when he places the camera directly behind someone, only to slowly pan up to see what the person sees. It’s very nicely done.
Then there are car chases through the narrow streets. These are all done from low, sweeping angles, and it felt like a good old-fashioned chase movie. He then pumps up the music, and it took me back to the cool driving games like Need For Speed. Again, I felt myself leaning into corners and smiling a lot as I was having a blast.
It was also nice how the director would flip back and forth from different storylines, usually just at a big reveal. Just as you were going to find out something about the aliens, it would switch to another part of the story on the other side of town. Again, nicely done.
The sets for the movie are awesome. I read that Hope is one of the most expensive Korean movies ever made. By the looks of it, they completely demolished an entire local town set just to film there; they should have come to my town, no set design needed.
The Bad
However, there are issues with Hope. Some of it looks fantastic, like they are in a real place. But then, some of the CG is bad- not terrible, but just bad. There’s one moment where we see the first alien in slow motion. It looks like the CG from the original Mortal Kombat. I don’t know if this was done on purpose or because of the budget, but it was a shame. However, I did let it slide as I was having so much fun.
The other thing was just the overall length. Hope is 2 hours and 35 minutes long, and it’s far, far too long for this kind of movie.
Saying that, though, the director keeps you invested all the way through. However, come the final chase scene, it goes on, and on, and on.
I was enjoying it to a point; the music was pumping, there were guns, and close calls. I started to think it was ridiculous, but no, they had gone to ludicrous.
This brings me on to another little annoyance. The aliens are fast, like stupidly fast when they run. At one point, one of them is chasing a guy on a horse. There must be about 20 times where you see the alien is fifty times faster than the horse, but it misses, or magically moves far away, in certain shots. I was enjoying it, but also knew it was stupid.
Overall
Hope is good fun; it harks back to things like Predator, with a bunch of people vs aliens. The story keeps you invested, and you are with the police chief every step of the way, in his nice clean boots. I noticed that his boots were more for fashion than practicality. However, he expected another quiet day, not dealing with aliens.
There is good humour throughout the movie, and it really made me laugh at times. It was how everyone in Hope was coping; I mean, it’s an alien attack. Half the time they are annoyed at each other for being so afraid.
Hope says it has Alicia Vikander and Michael Fassbender in it; it does, but it doesn’t. They only pop up at the end of the movie, which is an interesting ending. I honestly didn’t know where the movie was going to go, especially as the alien just didn’t seem to die.
Mild spoiler, but one alien is killed with a single bullet to the head. Another one takes more shots than a John Woo movie and just won’t go down!
We learn more about the aliens at the end, which might lead to a sequel. It was an odd end, but you need to see it for yourself, without me spoiling it.
Hope is definitely worth the watch. Yes, it has subtitles, but that’s a good thing; I didn’t find myself on my phone at any point. There’s good action, a solid story, and some really funny humour. Just be prepared for a long haul, even though the director keeps the pace up, even at ludicrous speed. I’m giving it a solid 4 out of 5.
Hope is now on VoD.
