HOPE (2026): Na Hong-jin's Record-Breaking Korean Movie and the New Bar It Sets for Action

Every so often a Korean movie arrives with the kind of scale and ambition that resets what audiences expect from the genre. HOPE (2026), the long-awaited fourth feature from director Na Hong-jin, is that film, the costliest Korean production ever made, now playing in UK and Irish cinemas via Neon. It's also one of the most talked-about and argued-over releases of the year. Here's a spoiler-light look at why it belongs on your must-watch list, and why it's dividing audiences right down the middle while doing it.

What HOPE is about

HOPE is set in Hope Harbor, a sleepy coastal village near the DMZ, where a mysterious and terrifying creature begins wreaking havoc after dark. What starts as a localised crisis for the town's residents escalates into something far larger and stranger as the true scale of the threat comes into view. Hwang Jung-min and Zo In-sung lead an extraordinary ensemble that includes Jung Ho-yeon, Taylor Russell, Cameron Britton, Alicia Vikander and Michael Fassbender - and that's genuinely as much as we'll say about where the story goes from there.

A new bar for Korean action cinema

The reason HOPE is being talked about in the same breath as the genre's biggest names comes down almost entirely to its opening act. The first hour or so unfolds as an unrelenting hunt through Hope Harbor's streets and the gargantuan, otherworldly forest surrounding it, production design so striking that several critics have described it as feeling like a different planet entirely, long before anything overtly sci-fi happens on screen.

Woven through that hunt are car chase sequences that critics have directly compared to John Frankenheimer's RONIN and the best of the MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE series - full-throttle, tearing through changing environments with a clarity and intensity that's rare in modern blockbuster filmmaking. Shot by cinematographer Hong Kyung-pyo, it's widely considered some of the strongest pure action filmmaking of Na Hong-jin's career, and a genuine high point for Korean action as a whole this year.

Critics and audiences can't agree - and that's part of the story

HOPE hasn't just divided critics, it's split audiences clean down the middle too. On Naver, South Korea's largest review platform, ticket-verified ratings cluster at both extremes rather than the middle: over half of raters gave it a 9 or 10, while nearly a quarter rated it a 1 or 2. It's a similar picture on Watcha, where scores have averaged out to a distinctly middling 3 out of 5, masking just how split opinion really is underneath.

Critical reviews have followed a similar pattern: genuine, enthusiastic praise for the craft and ambition sitting right alongside real reservations. Justin Chang, writing in The New Yorker, called out some of "the most exhilaratingly sustained action scenes I've seen in years" while still flagging weaker patches elsewhere in the film. That's been the story across the board, nobody's lukewarm on HOPE, but not everybody agrees on what to make of it either. And for what it's worth, the controversy hasn't hurt ticket sales, it stormed past 2 million admissions in South Korea within days of release.

Na Hong-jin's road to HOPE

HOPE is only Na Hong-jin's fourth feature, and each of the previous three built the reputation that made this one possible. He debuted with THE CHASER (2008), a serial-killer thriller that became one of the biggest Korean hits of its year. THE YELLOW SEA (2010) followed, premiering in Un Certain Regard at Cannes, before THE WAILING (2016) cemented him as one of Korean cinema's most distinctive voices in horror and dread, winning Best Director at the Blue Dragon Film Awards. A decade in the making, HOPE is both his biggest budget by far and his most ambitious swing yet a director known for art-house restraint going all in on blockbuster spectacle.

More high-octane Korean action to explore

If HOPE has you craving more Korean action at this level of intensity, Terracotta Distribution stocks several titles that belong in the same conversation. I SAW THE DEVIL remains one of the most ferocious revenge thrillers the country has produced, THE VILLAINESS delivers some of the most inventive, kinetic fight choreography of the last decade, and TRAIN TO BUSAN proved Korean genre cinema could go toe-to-toe with any Hollywood blockbuster on pure tension and spectacle alone.

Catch it in cinemas now, or own it on Blu-ray

HOPE is currently showing in UK and Irish cinemas. If you'd rather wait and watch it at home, or simply didn't catch it on the big screen, Terracotta Distribution has the HOPE Limited Edition Blu-ray available to order now, currently expected around the end of November 2026. However you choose to watch it, HOPE is a genuine event, one of the Korean movies people will still be arguing about for years to come.