It is always nice to see some truly weird-looking aliens. At one point in the new trailer for Na Hong-jin’s Hope, an alien erupting sideways from a building is shown, quite clearly, to have hair. Long, streaming hair. Its limbs are alarmingly long; its claws are fierce; it is very much capable of doing a lot of damage. And yet the hair weirded me out the most. Another alien has spikes! But still!
Hope, the latest film from the director of The Wailing, is set in a South Korean village, and the most recognizable-to-American-audiences names in the cast are all playing aliens. It remains to be seen if Alicia Vikander, Michael Fassbender, and/or Taylor Russell will be recognizable as aliens. Many things remain to be seen, including what exactly is up with the eerie dead baby-thing in this trailer. Here’s the synopsis:
In the remote South Korea village of Hope Harbor, police chief Bum-seok (Hwang Jung- min) and officer Sung-ae (Hoyeon) are called to find a mysterious creature that has wreaked havoc on the village. In the nearby forest, a coterie of hunters, including Sung-ki (Zo In-Sung) set out to track the beast and find themselves hunted instead. But all is not as it seems, and perceptions can be misleading. What begins as ignorance plants the seed of disaster, escalating through human conflict into a tragedy of cosmic proportions.
Maybe they’re not aliens? Maybe they’re people? I begin to have theories. Director Na has already written a sequel, so let’s hope Hope does well and there are more maybe-not-aliens down the road. According to New Yorker critic Justin Chang, this movie is “A riotous mashup of thrillingly staged and daringly attenuated chase scenes, mordant small-town comedy, and delightfully craptacular C.G.I.” I feel like we need this? And possibly more than one of this.
Hope premieres September 9th.
