‘Hope’ Review: Na Hong-jin’s Overlong Creature Feature is a Guns-Blazing Riot of Bawdy Humor, Bad CGI and Brilliant Action
Despite subpar creature effects and silly stabs at mythology, for about 70% of its hefty runtime, the Korean master's fourth film is among the best — and funniest — action movies you have ever seen.
Plus IconJessica Kiang
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For a decade, since 2016’s extraordinarily uncanny horror-hybrid “The Wailing,” fans of Korean director Na Hong-jin have been peering anxiously at the horizon awaiting his next uncategorizable genre mash-up. More recently, like a bumbling local police chief removing his mirrored aviators to squint at an unidentifiable what-the-hell-is-that wreaking havoc in the distance, we’ve tracked reports of his new project, which despite a high-profile international cast and the largest budget in Korean film history, remained until the last second shrouded in secrecy. Now that “Hope” is here — hilarious, unwieldy, overlong and featuring some of the most breathtakingly elegant action moviemaking of this or any year — one has to ask if anything could possibly have lived up to the anticipation.
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