Following a divisive Cannes premiere, the “final cut” of Na Hong-Jin’s sci-fi thriller Hope is now set to debut stateside this month at the New York Asian Film Festival. Ahead of that North American unveiling and subsequent September 9 release from NEON, the new trailer has arrived.
Here’s the synopsis: “In the remote village of Hope Harbor, a mysterious creature has wreaked havoc on the village. Police and local hunters set out to track the beast and find themselves hunted instead. But not all is as it seems. As panic spreads and reality begins to unravel, the village finds itself facing something far beyond imagination.”
“Ultimately, what this film hopes to explore and convey is the familiar adage that all the world’s tragedies stem from misunderstandings,” says Na. While audiences may come for the pulse-pounding genre spectacle, the director describes HOPE simply as “a human drama.”
Luke Hicks said in his review, “It’s never night in Hope Harbor. At least so long as we’re there. The eschatological events of writer-director Na Hong-Jin’s high-octane, highly anticipated Hope unfold over the course of one long, grueling, nonstop chase of a day for its rag-tag team of small-town South Korean cops, yokels, and hicks, an ensemble that ranges from heroic to hilarious in this blathering creature-feature phantasm.”
See the trailer below for the film starring Hwang Jung-min, Zo In-sung, Jung Ho-yeon, Taylor Russell, Cameron Britton, Alicia Vikander, and Michael Fassbender: