Inside the Sheer Bravado of ‘Hope’

Sometimes when a film ends, you mosey out of the theatre, into the street and instantly forget about it. Other times, you remain in your seat, flattened into immobility by what you’ve just witnessed.

I had some knowledge of what to expect. Na Hong-jin’s last film The Wailing , released 10 years ago, was a serious mess-with-your-mind outing that combined Korean history, Christian theology and good old-fashioned scariness into a creation of dizzying complexity. The layers of narrative begged for repeated viewings, if only to get to the bottom of things.

Turns out the bottom of things is a pretty dark place. And that’s where the director Na Hong-jin does his best work.

At the press screening for Hope , the public relations team asked for first impressions of the film, and I wasn’t able to provide anything. I’ve been thinking about it for a few weeks now, and I’m still not much closer to forming a coherent interpretation.

In a tiny little hamlet called Hope Harbour located close to the North Korean border, the chief of police Ko Bum-seok (Hwang Jung-min) along with his cousin Ko Sung-ki (Zo In-sung) have been sent on a rather unusual call.

The body of a bull, ripped and shredded into a gory heap, is lying in the middle of a road. The dead animal has attracted the attention of a local band of hunters who offer unhelpful opinions on what could have possibly killed the massive bovine.

A tiger, down from the Demilitarized Zone, seems the only logical explanation. After the assembled group bandies some insults and scratches their collective heads, police chief Ko Bum-seok heads back into town to warn the locals. The hunters, meanwhile, take off for the nearby woods to see if they can capture and kill the murderous tiger.

Upon returning to the village, the cop finds the place has been reduced to matchsticks, and the townsfolk are little more than crimson splatters. Whatever has taken its wrath out on the town and its inhabitants is considerably larger and more pissed off than any earthly animal.

In his high-heeled Beatle boots and leather jacket, the police chief cuts a curious figure as he makes his way past the piles of dead bodies and destroyed buildings. The sound of his boot heels cuts through the eerie stillness, adding a strangely jaunty beat to the proceedings.

The fact that he is obviously terrified out his mind is strangely undercut by a gonzo humour endemic to Korean cinema .

Meanwhile, the group of hunters led by Ko Sung-ki have stumbled across more slaughtered cows and a missing farmer. Well, at least part of him is missing: his severed arm is hanging from a tree.

As the men move deeper into the woods, they discover a campsite that is strangely empty save for a few bored-looking horses. Whatever has been there has no beef with the equines, but it has buried a full-grown bear up to its snout in the forest.

At this point, you may well be sharing the feelings of chief Bum-seok as he searches the ruins of Hope Harbour, looking in vain for answers and finding only complete destruction.

It is worth pausing for a moment to take a deep breath and attempt to ascertain what the Sam Hill is happening in this film.