Beware: This story has major spoilers for Hope. Proceed with caution.
Hope isn’t your parents’ monsters-from-space movie. While Na Hong-Jin‘s gloriously gonzo creature feature owes a debt to the classics, the South Korean filmmaker decided for his first project since 2016’s The Wailing, he would not only subvert Hollywood tropes but throw a wild third-act curveball that completely reframes the alien-invasion story.
“I thought hard about what I wanted to do next, and my trail of thoughts ended up in space,” Na tells Gold Derby. “I thought that space was really fun, which led me to decide, let’s just do an alien movie. But a typical alien movie is not going to be very interesting, which is why the movie ended up this way.”
After a rapturous reception at Cannes and a detour to Comic-Con, Hope opened in theaters this weekend, allowing audiences to discover Na’s unconventional roller coaster of a movie — and allowing us to reveal all the secrets Na spilled about the film’s genesis, its surprise twists, and what we can expect from the planned sequel.
The backstory
Na began writing the movie years ago, when tensions between North and South Korea had so escalated that the countries appeared on the brink of conflict. Throughout the insular town of Hope Harbor there are billboards encouraging citizens to report spies and suspicious activities and other signs warning of minefields. There’s a palpable sense of xenophobia. The fear of stranger danger extends to the aliens who crash land in the woods.
“That is actually a quite clichéd premise, but it was very important for this particular film. That premise is used in many other films of a similar sort, but in this film, as the story progresses — and even for the story that comes after this movie — isolation is such an important element of the narrative,” Na says.
“Isolation, first of all, strengthens the feeling of intrusion, that somebody’s intruding on our space. It also helps show us that the people in this space don’t like external influences; they’re a very tight-knit community, and they like to turn against what we call the other. It’s almost as if the world here is a completely different world from the outside world. So the ultimate message of this film, and something that I truly wanted to emphasize, is the idea of understanding the other. I also wanted to show the not-so-good parts of humanity and their instincts. That’s why I really focus on the theme of isolation.”
The monstrous influences
The movie begins with a riff on Jaws: a beleaguered police officer (Hwang Jung-min) struggles to save his seaside town from a monstrous threat, helped along the way by his resourceful deputy (Squid Game breakout Hoyeon Jung). Meanwhile, a group of testosterone-fueled hunters (led by the steely Zo In-sung) set off to capture the creature. They quickly discover that the beast laying waste to the town is not of this world.
The hunters eventually discover the downed spacecraft, whose Alien-style interior hints at the horrors to come.
“Certainly, I was very much influenced by those classical monster movies in terms of the design, but I did want to try something new and different,” Na tells Gold Derby. “In the end, it was impossible not to be influenced by those classical movies. So when I was executing the scenes or writing the screenplays, I did reference a lot of those classical movies, but the scenes ended up still being very much different from what was done before.”
Na was also influenced by the work of the Coen brothers, which explains the anarchic and subversive elements, as well as William Friedkin — the epic third-act chase involving a hero on horseback, a police car, and an indestructible, shape-shifting alien plays like an otherworldly French Connection. Aside from the mo-cap and CGI used for the extraterrestrials, Na shot the film using practical effects and intense stunt work.
Invasion Hollywood
While their names are prominently featured in the marketing materials, Alicia Vikander, Michael Fassbender, Cameron Britton, and Taylor Russell don’t appear in their familiar forms. Instead, they are the four aliens who face off with the humans, with real-life couple Vikander and Fassbender having the most screen time.
“Alicia, she was the first actor we cast,” Na says. “This was during a conversation while we were prepping for another film together. I brought up this film and asked, ‘Oh, how does this movie sound?’ And she immediately said yes.'” Fassbender and the others came aboard soon after. “The casting process was fun, and it was really fast, too,” the filmmaker says, adding that each of the actors had their faces scanned so the respective creatures would retain their performances.
One-sheets for the film show each of the Hollywood actors in their alien forms: Alicia Vikander, Michael Fassbender, Cameron Britton, and Taylor Russell, respectively.
The ending explained… and what’s next
Hope ends with a big twist that not only upends what we’ve been experiencing but also changes the meaning of the title. After the surviving humans manage to escape the rampaging Fassbender, a giant spaceship comes tearing though the atmosphere. Suddenly, the story shifts and becomes about the extraterrestrials. Vikander and Fassbender’s characters begin communicating in an alien tongue (Na reveals that academics at Seoul University developed the language based on a Mongolian dialect and that’s the actors really speaking) and we learn a little of the history of their species. We also discover that the presumed-dead baby alien discovered by an eccentric poacher and stored in his freezer is still alive, and the creatures are determined to find it. There is hope for a family reunion… but that will need to wait for the sequel.
“The original plot for this film was initially three times longer than what you see on the screen today,” Na explains. “Initially, I did think about making this into one movie, but I realized that it might be too long.
“In the complete version of the story — after where this current version of the movie ends — this is where the alien stories really start, and this is where the role of the aliens becomes really prominent. I think that’s why the actors were generally positive about saying yes to the role.
“After the story of this movie ends, that’s when night falls, and the complete story will end before that night ends. But we will also have to show a little bit of backstory, which will take place in space.”
