Hope

Wildfires cut off all communication with a mountain town. The local police chief and his rookie deputy have to defend the community against a creature that appears. A hunting party in the same mountains finds itself hunted. The film is not interested in the monster. It is interested in the severed connection: no radio, no telephone, no help from outside, and the town has to make its own decisions. As in Na Hong-jin's earlier work, the real tension comes from what people will do to each other. The form is large scale: fire, forest, night sequences and heavy visual effects. It is the director's most expensive production to date and among the biggest budgets in Korean cinema. Na Hong-jin wrote and directed. The film had its world premiere in competition at Cannes on 17 May 2026 to sharply divided reactions, opened in Korea on 15 July 2026, and then screened at the New York Asian Film Festival. Hwang Jung-min and Zo In-sung lead, with Jung Ho-yeon, Taylor Russell, Alicia Vikander and Michael Fassbender in the cast. Who it is for: viewers who like Na Hong-jin's harshness and large-scale genre work. Who it is not for: anyone after restraint. The film is long and tonally excessive, and the split reaction at Cannes is the evidence.