Here's a pretty frustrating situation for genre cinema fans in France: Hope, the new film from Na Hong-jin, director of The Chaser, The Yellow Sea and The Wailing, has been playing in American cinemas for a few days now, but French audiences will have to wait several months before catching it on the big screen. And yet the film will be available digitally in the US from 13 October on Amazon Video and iTunes, a full two weeks before its French theatrical release. A fairly surprising schedule for a film of this scale, especially as Hope ranks among the most ambitious South Korean projects of recent years. Screened at the Cannes Film Festival, it caused quite a stir there and whipped up serious hype. Despite running almost three hours, Na Hong-jin's flick turned heads by blending science fiction, horror, action and black humour around a mysterious alien invasion.
French viewers will just have to grin and bear it, while American audiences can already see it in cinemas and then at home a few weeks later. It's all the more regrettable given that Hope was clearly built for the big screen, with its creatures, its action set pieces and its many spectacular sequences. Out of 2h40, we're talking about two solid hours of non-stop action.
Maybe it's time Asian cinema got a bit more respect, eh
Obviously, watching Hope at home will never replace a proper cinema screening, but the problem runs deeper than that. When a film is this eagerly awaited and becomes available digitally before it even opens in France, it's obvious that a chunk of the audience simply won't bother making the trip. That's a real loss for a film designed precisely to be discovered on the big screen. And this lag is sadly fairly typical of how certain Asian films are treated in France. We're seeing exactly the same problem with Yuen Woo-ping's Blades of the Guardians, which arrives here in November, nearly a year after its release in China and even in the US (the indignity of it). For films this eagerly anticipated by Asian cinema fans, such delays are becoming genuinely hard to fathom, and above all they give the impression that French audiences always come last.
Monsters Inc. from Korea
For anyone who hasn't been following the Hope news, the story takes place in Hope Harbour, a small, isolated community near the demilitarised zone between the two Koreas. After dead animals and strange tracks are discovered, the locals quickly realise that something unknown is prowling the forest. Things escalate fast when shape-shifting alien creatures start going after humans. Car chases, shootouts, forest confrontations and some seriously violent scenes follow one after another, with Na Hong-jin changing tack completely after The Wailing.
The cinematography comes from Hong Kyung-pyo, who already worked on Parasite and Burning, but unlike Na Hong-jin's previous films, Hope largely plays out in broad daylight. And Na Hong-jin is apparently thinking even bigger, since Hope reportedly tells only part of the story he had in mind. A sequel is already on the cards, with more room given to the aliens' point of view.
We'll be seeing it in the cinema for the experience, of course, but rest assured we won't pass up the chance to pick it apart on VOD too.
