Hope (2026) Review: We Shot First, That Was Our Mistake. Na Hong-jin’s Alien Monster Film That Split Audiences - Honest Review

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source: tv.lk21

Synopsis:

Hope (2026) is a South Korean sci-fi action thriller film directed by Na Hong-jin. The film was released on May 17, 2026 (Cannes), July 15, 2026 (South Korea), September 9, 2026 (United States - Neon), September 9, 2026 (Indonesia) and runs for 157 minutes (2 hours and 37 minutes). Hope received an R / 15+ rating for bloody violence. Filming began on July 29, 2023 - March 17, 2024 and was carried out in Jeju Island, Haenam, Hapcheon, South Korea + Retezat National Park, Romania for the forest scenes for 2 months. This is a film that divides audiences. Some give it 9/10, some give it 2/5. So far on Rotten Tomatoes: 79% critics, 79% audience.

In a remote fishing village called Hope Harbor, near the demilitarized zone (DMZ) of North Korea - South Korea, life feels peaceful. Until one day, a cow is found dead, torn apart in the middle of the road. Its claw wounds are deep and strange. Residents think this is the work of a tiger that came down from the north. The village police chief, Ko Bum-seok, is called by his cousin, a hunter named Ko Sung-ki, to examine the carcass. Sung-ki and his hunting group then go up to the mountain to hunt that tiger. But as soon as Bum-seok returns to the village, the village is already destroyed. Not a tiger. There is something far bigger, stronger, and not from Earth that is rampaging. Communication is cut off. Help from outside does not come. The village becomes an isolated island. The panicked Bum-seok, rookie police officer Im Sung-ae, and the surviving retired colonel, Ahn Nak-yeon, must fight that creature with only makeshift weapons, cars, and horses. Meanwhile in the forest, Sung-ki just realizes, he is not the hunter. He is the hunted. And it turns out, that creature is not alone. There are 5 other creatures. And they have a hierarchy, have their own language, and have a mission. From here the film changes completely. From a Jaws-like monster film in the first hour, to a crazy cosmic alien war film in the remaining 1.5 hours.

This film is flooded with positive scores. The first hour is almost perfect. The tension is like Jaws. We are not shown the monster first. Only traces of blood, a dead cow, a police radio that gets more and more panicked. The village feels real, dirty, remote. When it is destroyed, the destruction is also total. Then non-stop chase action. Car + horse chases in the village and forest. The choreography is brutal, the camera keeps moving, and many scenes are really practical without CGI. The alien concept is ambitious. Not just a ferocious monster. They have a language, a caste, a queen and fighters.

However, there are also minus scores in this film. Its CGI became meme material. Many viewers say the alien CGI looks like a game, like a film from the 90s. Even though its budget is the most expensive in Korea. This is the most common complaint. The messy second act. After all the monsters are revealed, the story becomes jumpy, too many genres in one film, as if Attack on Titan + Transformers + Predator + Avatar were made into one. The 157-minute duration feels long. And the ending is hanging, like we only watched 2/3 of the film. If you are the type who hates waiting for a sequel, this will frustrate you.

This film stars: Hwang Jung-min, Zo In-sung, Jung Ho-yeon, Lee Sang-hee, Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander and more.

In my opinion:

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I am really confused about this film. Okay, I'll start slowly. First is the story idea, human vs alien or monster, this is nothing new. That means this film must be good in presentation and action. As I expected from a South Korean film, very good details, a destroyed village, a destroyed traditional market, you can see very extraordinary details especially in the traditional market. Not only that, the victims who died were also made very real and tragic, one that I like is the victim who was crushed by an iron door as a result of being hit by the monster. These are the parts I like.

Now I will express my confusion. From all the tragic scenes of the destroyed village, many things are unclear here. From the beginning of the film, I was given a mystery about 'something' that had slaughtered a cow but did not eat it. Mystery after mystery was revealed slowly until the 45th minute, the monster finally showed itself. I was shocked because this monster is similar to Attack on Titan but a slightly smaller version. This monster is ferocious and fast, but can be defeated. Is it finished? Oh of course not, it turns out there are still 3 more monsters.

Okay, now my thought is human vs 3 monsters, right? This film is like divided into 2 teams, the first team is in the village and the second team is in the forest. Well, this is what confuses me. The forest team actually found a spaceship! Yes, an Alien spaceship! It turns out there are 3 Aliens in the forest and this team must fight against them. So now the position is human vs monster + alien, this is really crazy!

Now my mind is already filled with epic battles, whether maybe all South Korean national soldiers will fight against these monsters + aliens. In fact, NO! Since the appearance of these aliens, there are no more scenes of the 3 monsters earlier. The story becomes focused on these aliens until the end of the film. Hey! What about the continuation of those 3 monsters??? I am really confused.

Okay, fine, I'll try to follow the story. There are 5 people who survive and try to fight against these Aliens, tragic and dramatic scenes color until the end of this film. Strangely, these aliens are indeed ferocious, but I feel that they are actually not evil. Because humans panicked, they attacked. It is clear these aliens fought back. Why can I say that these aliens are not evil, because the ending of this film is like wanting to say that these aliens also experienced a tragic event and were forced to fall to Earth. The end of the film is made like hanging, I have a hunch there will be a sequel and it will answer all my confusions, haha.

The visuals, audio and cinematography are very good, I am sure you will like them. The actors' acting is very natural as if telling us that this is the correct reaction if we are faced with monsters or aliens. Unfortunately the story is like a mess. Even there is not the slightest story about the origin of these monsters and aliens. If you like The Wailing, Attack on Titan, Mad Max: Fury Road, you will love its madness. But if you expect an atmospheric horror film like The Wailing, you will be shocked. This is the strangest blockbuster ever made by Na Hong-jin.

For me this one is 7/10.

Knowledge Center:

In Hope (2026), the villagers shoot first because they are afraid. In real life, scientists have a protocol for this moment. We have been sending messages into the dark for 50 years, waiting for an answer. But what if the answer lands not in New York or Seoul, but in a small fishing village with no signal, no army, no one to call? First Contact will not start with a war. It will start with a misunderstanding.

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In the film Hope (2026), all disasters begin from one simple thing: misunderstanding. The residents of Hope Harbor village see a foreign creature. They panic. They shoot. The creature fights back. And war begins. Even though that creature may not have come to attack. This is not just a film story. This is the most real fear of scientists in the world. They call it First Contact - the first moment humans meet an alien civilization. And the question is: if that moment really happens tomorrow morning, are we ready? Let us discuss briefly in this KC column.

First Contact is a term for the first meeting between humans and intelligent life from outside Earth. Not just seeing a UFO in the sky. But proven two-way communication. We send a signal, they reply. Or they land, and we can talk. Scientists divide it into 3 scenarios:

• Signal from Afar. We catch a radio signal from another planet. This is the safest and most likely scenario. We do not meet directly, but we know we are not alone.
• Artefact or unmanned spacecraft. We find an alien spacecraft that has no crew anymore, or a probe that fell to Earth. Similar to in the film Hope, the spacecraft fell first, the creatures came out later.
• Direct Encounter. This is the most feared and most often in films. They land, we stare at each other. And here is where the danger of misunderstanding is greatest. In Hope, we get this scenario. The worst scenario.

Many think humans are silently waiting. WRONG. We are actually the noisiest in the galaxy. Try to see our activities below:

• 1974 - Arecibo Message. Scientists in Puerto Rico sent a radio message to the star cluster M13, which is 25,000 light-years away. Its contents, numbers 1 to 10, a picture of human DNA, a picture of humans, and a picture of our solar system. That message is still on its journey until now.
• 1977 - Voyager Golden Record. NASA sent two Voyager spacecraft carrying a golden record. Inside there are 90 minutes of music from all over the world, whale sounds, rain sounds, the sound of a mother kissing her baby, and greetings in 55 languages.
• 1977 - Wow! Signal. In the same year, a telescope in Ohio captured a strange radio signal that was very strong for 72 seconds from the direction of the constellation Sagittarius. The scientist who saw it wrote "Wow!" on his paper. Until today, that signal has never been repeated again and never been solved. It is the only strongest alien signal candidate we have ever received.

We indirectly opened the door wide. That means, if aliens come, they may come because we called them first.

Why are scientists still afraid of First Contact? Not because they are afraid the aliens are evil. But because they are afraid we are stupid. There is a theory called Dark Forest Theory, popularized by writer Liu Cixin in the novel The Three-Body Problem. The theory is like this, the universe is like a dark forest. Every civilization is a hunter hiding. If you are found, you will be hunted first. So the safest way is to be silent and don't make a sound. Humans? We light a campfire, sing, and send our home address to the whole forest. Another more terrifying theory is Colonization Theory. When two civilizations with very different technologies meet, the weaker almost always is destroyed. Not because the strong is evil, but because they do not consider the weak important.

For example when Columbus came to America. He did not come to kill all native tribes. But within 100 years, 90% of Native Americans died because of diseases, wars, and land seizures brought by Europeans. Not just because of evil intent, but because of unequal technology and immunity differences. Scientists are afraid, the same thing could happen to us if the aliens who come have technology 1,000 years more advanced.

Then an important question arises, does the world have a protocol if aliens come? The answer is: YES, but the protocol is very weak and not binding. The organizations that handle this are SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) and IAU (International Astronomical Union). The protocol, called Post-Detection Protocols, contains more or less this:

• Do not immediately announce to the public. Verify the signal repeatedly first.
• Do not reply to that signal without international approval. No single country may represent the entire Earth alone.
• Information must be shared with all scientists in the world openly.

The problem is, this protocol has no legal force. There is no world police who can stop a country or a billionaire from replying to an alien signal first. And most importantly, this protocol was made for a radio signal scenario. Not for a scenario of an alien spacecraft falling in a small village like in the film Hope. If a spacecraft falls in a remote village, no protocol applies. What exists is only village police, panicked residents, and weapons. Exactly like in the film Hope.

If we pay attention, why do aliens always land in remote areas like forests, deserts, mountains or remote villages? Why never land in crowded places like Jakarta, Seoul, or New York? There are 2 reasons:

• Film Reason. Forest, desert, mountains or small village is isolation. No signal, no help, no way out. That makes tension rise 10x.
• Scientific Reason. If you are an alien and want to observe humans without being caught, you will not land in the middle of a city that has 10 million CCTV cameras. You will land in a quiet place. In a forest, mountain or in a remote village.

That is why in the real world, UFO sighting reports most often come from pilots, fishermen, and farmers in remote areas. Not from city people.

Director Na Hong-jin once said, the theme of Hope is not about aliens. But about how ignorance plants the seed of disaster. In the film, the aliens have a language, have a Queen, have a Fighter, have a hierarchy. They are not ferocious monsters. They are a civilization that has its own rules. But humans do not try to understand. Humans immediately consider them a threat. This is exactly the same as human history. Every time we meet something we do not understand, our first reaction is almost always fear, then attack. Even though, maybe, the alien is also afraid of us. Imagine you are that alien. You fall on a foreign planet. You are injured. You cannot speak their language. Then suddenly there is a small soft-skinned creature pointing a weapon at you. What would you do? You would also fight to survive. That is the real tragedy of First Contact. Not a war between good and evil. But a war between two parties who are both afraid.

If aliens come tomorrow morning to your place, do not run, do not shoot, do not record for content. Try to be silent for a moment. Try to listen. Because that first moment will determine whether we will be friends, or enemies for thousands of years to come. In the film Hope, humans chose to shoot first. And we know how it ends. In the real world, we still have a chance to choose differently. If you were the Police Chief Ko Bum-seok in that village, what would you do first? Run, hide, or try to talk? Please feel free to write in the comment column.