{"id":42764,"date":"2026-09-14T07:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T11:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=42764"},"modified":"2026-09-13T18:40:01","modified_gmt":"2026-09-13T22:40:01","slug":"hope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=42764","title":{"rendered":"“Hope” (2026) written & directed by Na Hong-jin \/ Z-View"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Hope <\/i>(2026)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Director: Na Hong-jin<\/strong><\/p>\n

Screenplay: \u00a0Na Hong-jin<\/strong><\/p>\n

Stars:\u00a0 Hwang Jung-min, Zo In-sung, Jung Ho-yeon, Taylor Russell, Cameron Britton, Alicia Vikander<\/strong> and Michael Fassbender<\/strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tagline: None.<\/p>\n

The Plot…<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Ko Bum-seok is the Chief of Police for the small town of Hope Harbor. Ko drives to the outskirts of town to meet with a group of hunters.\u00a0 They found a badly mutilated cow carcass.\u00a0 Whatever killed the bovine had great strength and huge claws.\u00a0 The hunters are concerned.\u00a0 They speculate that it could have been a bear… or a tiger.\u00a0 Whatever killed the cow is dangerous and needs to be captured or killed before it gets into town.\u00a0 Concerns rise when more dead and mutilated livestock are found.<\/p>\n

Ko radios for back-up but most of the force is off fighting wild fires.\u00a0 Ko heads into town to alert the townfolk.\u00a0 The hunters continue deeper into the woods to see if they can pick up the beast’s trail.<\/p>\n

When Ko gets to Hope Harbor he finds a path of destruction.\u00a0 Something is killing everyone in its way.\u00a0 The trail is easy to follow due to dead bodies and destroyed building walls.\u00a0 Ko is alone, with no back-up.\u00a0 He’s scared but pushes on.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile the hunters move deeper into the forest.<\/p>\n

Neither Ko or the hunters are prepared for what they will find.\u00a0 No one could be.<\/p>\n

Thoughts (beware of spoilers)\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

Although it is never specifically mentioned, the film is set in the 1980s.\u00a0 Writer\/director Na Hong-jin used this time period to increase the isolation of the characters.\u00a0 No cell phones or internet.\u00a0 It is much harder to reach out for additional suppport once phone lines are down.<\/p>\n

The promotion for Hope<\/em> (trailers and posters) got my interest early on.\u00a0 I loved that there was a mystery to what was actually happening.\u00a0 This carries over to a good section of the movie.\u00a0 The characters, like the audience want to know what is causing the damage.\u00a0 And then when we find out — whew!<\/p>\n

There is a nice mix of humor, action and mystery.\u00a0 Na Hong-jin is not afraid to show that his characters have fear.\u00a0 Their fear causes misteps, accidents and unheroic actions.\u00a0 Yet these situations are caused by bravery and heroics despite fear.\u00a0 It’s not often we see set-ups like these in action films.<\/p>\n

Na Hong-jin wastes no time setting up the mystery and then getting to the action.<\/p>\n

I like Hope<\/em>.\u00a0 A lot.\u00a0 There are just three small nits I would pick.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The ending seemed abrupt.\u00a0 The final scenes are a great set-up for a sequel but I would have liked a bit more closure for Hope<\/em>.<\/li>\n
  2. Something happens near the end of the movie.\u00a0 It’s a big moment.\u00a0 Then in a mid-credits scene, the big moment is negated.\u00a0 It felt like a cheat.\u00a0 Was the intent to shock the audience and then say, “Not really.”\u00a0 Or was the plan to **** spoiler alert**** really kill the character, but test screenings changed that idea?\u00a0 The mid-credits scene fixed that.<\/li>\n
  3. In some of the battles, characters survive things that should have killed them.\u00a0 They came out with no or very superficial injuries.\u00a0 The stakes could have been raised if there were more negative\/serious outcomes.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Hats off to Na Hong-jin.\u00a0 Hope<\/em> is a winner.\u00a0 I, er, hope we get to see more in this universe.<\/p>\n

    Hope <\/i>(2026)<\/strong> rates 4 of 5 stars.<\/span><\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Hope (2026) Director: Na Hong-jin Screenplay: \u00a0Na Hong-jin Stars:\u00a0 Hwang Jung-min, Zo In-sung, Jung Ho-yeon, Taylor Russell, Cameron Britton, Alicia<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":912,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[53,54,65,74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-horror","category-movies","category-trivia","category-z-view"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/912"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42764"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42764\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42775,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42764\/revisions\/42775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}