The Most Intense Sci-Fi Movie of the Year Began with a Fishing Trip Near the Korean DMZ

Director Na Hong-jin can be unexpectedly modest for a filmmaker who has a penchant for making near three-hour genre epics like The Wailing, 2016’s supernaturally-charged horror movie about mysterious killings in a small town that became the toast of Cannes. Before that, The Yellow Sea saw the South Korean auteur tackle the action genre with similar verve and ambition. Yet even with his latest film conquering world cinema with a scale that is absolutely astonishing, Director Na remains curiously humble about Hope, a film which has no less on its mind than the end of the world.

Mixing horror and action both this time around in a larger science fiction stew, Hope is a stunning achievement in which the small town of Hope Harbor is absolutely decimated by an initially unseen primal force. Our erstwhile hero is Police Chief Bum-seok (Hwang Jung-min), an almost hapless figure who attempts to lead viewers through a devastation he can barely grasp. Soon, however, other heroes emerge like rookie cope Sung-ae (Jung Ho-yeon), a far more competent alien killer, and a group of wily hunters who take it upon themselves to track the unseen mysterious beasts in the woods, including the veritable, horse-riding cowboy Sung-ki (Zo In-sung).

 It’s really an ensemble piece about how humanity reacts to the threat of the other, which in this case comes from the literal sky. And as Director Na explains to us, the idea for something so grand in scope can begin as simply as observing what it can really mean to go fishing in the Korean wilderness.

“I would say Hope is a lot of different inspirations,” Na says when Zooming with us from South Korea. “It would be the town I saw while I was on a trip, or the people I met while going fishing.” Traditionally this would sound like a relaxing holiday, but the way that Na explains his experience, it can become all-consuming alternative way of life—and a glimpse into a different side of humanity.

“I went on these fishing trips with people who didn’t really have real jobs,” the director recalls. “They only worked short-term jobs in order to get the money to allow them to fish. And I went on a lot of trips with these people, with the group sometimes as large as 10 people. Other times it was just two people, but… I had so much fun because these were not the kinds of people I’d met before.”

What intrigued the filmmaker wasn’t just that they liked the sport; it’s that they seemed to lived for nothing else: “They don’t go home, they don’t shower, they don’t sleep, they just continue to fish.” It’s a lifestyle that greatly influenced Hope’s vision of humanity, something that’s “more primal and instinctive.” Another way to say that, then, might be tribal.

Indeed, while the film is ultimately a stylish action spectacle wherein the film’s hunters come face-to-face with aliens from beyond, the trick of the film is that the extraterrestrials (played unrecognizably in motion-capture by famous Western actors like Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander) are also revealed to be a culture unable to comprehend the squishy humans they meet in the East Asian woods—and noticeably near the minefields of Korea’s Demilitarized Zone.

“During the time when I was just starting to find the inspiration for the movie Hope, there was a lot of news on the television about an impending war in Korea,” says Na. “So I think all of these things added up.” There can be surprisingly tense action sequences, including a spectacular third act chase of alien versus horse, but at its heart this is a sci-fi film about what happens when communication is perceived to be the last resort if not outright futile.

Says Na, “The aliens are metaphors for victims of society, and humans, in contrast, would represent the assaulters. So at the end of this movie, these two opposing sides, the assaulters and the victims, their perspective and their story converge, and the movie asks the question of what kind of future lies ahead for them.”

Thematically it’s a potent idea, yet we suspect what might stay with viewers is sequences like the extended first act wherein Hwang’s hapless police chief is going virtually door to door in his ruined community, trying to find the unseen beast that left a bloody trail of carnage in its wake.

“Jaws was certainly an inspiration,” admits Na, “but the truth is it’s not just Jaws that start out that way. I think most movies of this kind share a similar beginning, but I did want to try to differentiate it from other movies by making that opening sequence a lot denser and to expand it more than other movies.” The amount of time Na resists showing his aliens, and keeping the mystery eternally off-screen, is near fiendish, with extended portions of the film living in the real-time dread of what is around the next corner.

The patience to twist the knife is also what makes Hope a bit rare in the action genre, at least from a Western perspective. With its lengthy 156 minutes running time, Hope runs the exact same length as The Yellow Sea and The Wailing, although the director swears such symmetry was not by design.

“I did not do that on purpose, it just ended up being that way,” he laughs. It still ended up making one of the most singular and memorable genre experiences of its year. That’s some kind of hat trick for the helmer.

Na opens in U.S. cinemas on Sept. 11.