‘Hope’ Unleashes a Bats— Crazy Korean Monster Movie on Cannes and Earns 6-Minute Standing Ovation

May 17, 2026 3:38pm PT ‘Hope’ Unleashes a Bats— Crazy Korean Monster Movie on Cannes and Earns 6-Minute Standing Ovation

By Alex Ritman

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Alex Ritman

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“Hope” — an extremely ambitious blockbuster hopeful about an alien invasion in a sleepy South Korean mountain town — jolted the Cannes Film Festival awake on Sunday night with a 6-minute ovation.

Directed by Na Hong-jin, the big-budget epic combined a gritty survival story and an original sci-fi mythology — no one quite knew what to expect from the title, which has domestic distribution through Neon.

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