The first official main trailer for Na Hong-jin’s Hope just dropped online. What starts out looking like a gritty, grounded police procedural immediately throws that premise out the window. By the two-minute mark, the footage devolves into a blood-soaked, alien-invasion creature feature.
Set in an isolated town called Hope Harbor near the Korean Demilitarized Zone, the plot initially tracks a local police chief (Hwang Jung-min) and a patrol officer (Hoyeon) investigating a mysterious creature attack. But things escalate fast. The international cast getting dragged into the chaos includes Zo In-sung, Taylor Russell, Cameron Britton, Alicia Vikander, and Michael Fassbender.
This project is Na Hong-jin’s first feature film in exactly a decade, directly following his 2016 horror hit The Wailing. And he certainly secured the funding to make the return count. The project carries a 160-minute runtime and a $33 million production budget, making it the most expensive film ever produced in South Korean cinematic history.
Audiences at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival already got a look at it when the picture competed for the Palme d’Or. The reactions were deeply polarized. Viewers were reportedly split down the middle over the relentless action and wild genre shifts. For everyone else, the movie is scheduled to hit U.S. theaters on September 9, backed by a distribution deal with NEON.