Pursuit is the essence of Na Hong-jin’s cinema. His chases, marked by sprinting and slipping, take aim at the very nature of cinema itself. Unlike his previous works, HOPE disorients the chase, constantly switching the roles of pursuer and pursued as it hurtles through chaos. In staging chases across villages, forests, and roads, Na Hong-jin deliberately slows or strips away the thrill of speed. As suspense is deferred, the chase loses both direction and momentum, often spinning its wheels in place. In the village, people enter buildings but fail to emerge; in the forest, they flee without direction only to meet their deaths; on the endless road with no discernible beginning or end, movement repeatedly comes to a halt over silly jokes and mistakes. It is an almost brazen challenge, a defiant declaration that cinema can still be reached even after dismantling the very elements we believe constitute it. The film seems to absorb nationality, local identity, the spirit of the times, genre conventions, and even the audience’s most primal pleasures. Would it be too fanciful to see the sun that never sets as an ‘alien eye’ - or the eye of cinema gazing back at us? Even if that is so, it is comforting to find its light suffused with compassion for human fear and folly.
Through The Chaser (2008), The Yellow Sea (2010), and The Wailing (2016), he has developed a distinctive narrative voice and a powerful cinematic style. Combining visceral genre thrills with weighty themes and pushing familiar conventions in unpredictable directions, his fourth feature, HOPE, depicts how human misunderstanding and ignorance spiral into uncontrollable tragedy, unfolding on an overwhelming scale and with relentless momentum. HOPE was selected for Competition at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival, where it received strong acclaim.
From Busan International Film Festival 2026, No. 31
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