"Hope" Re-Cut: How Na Hong-jin's Film Has Changed Since Cannes

Na Hong-jin spent roughly a decade working on 'Hope,' a sci-fi horror action film considered the most expensive production in Korean cinema history. It pushed the boundaries of the country's motion capture and CGI creature technology — perhaps too far, in the eyes of some of the audience at its Cannes premiere.

Screened in competition at Cannes 79 alongside the restrained auteur films of Paweł Pawlikowski and Ryusuke Hamaguchi, 'Hope' gave the festival the jolt of electricity it needed: a significant portion of the audience in the Debussy theater sat on the edge of their seats for 200 minutes. Reactions, however, were split. The Hollywood Reporter's chief critic David Rooney called the film "an instant cult classic," while IndieWire's David Ehrlich described its first third as "dazzling and gleefully unhinged big-set-piece filmmaking" but ranked the CGI in the final 100 minutes, once the central creature takes over, among the worst he'd ever seen.

None of this stopped Neon from acquiring the film, with its North American release set for September 10. The mixed reviews didn't entirely surprise the director either: Na was still making major sound and editing decisions in the lead-up to Cannes and said in post-premiere interviews that he planned to keep tinkering with the film.

The re-cut final version opened in South Korea last week and broke the country's fastest box office record, selling 2.6 million tickets in five days. While in the city for the U.S. premiere at the New York Asian Film Festival, Na visited IndieWire's offices and discussed the post-Cannes changes.

The individual changes aren't massive: the CGI wasn't overhauled from scratch, and trimming just over four minutes from the 160-minute Cannes cut isn't radical. But the revised film moves much more fluidly. According to Na, the most extensive work went into the sound design — an area he feels audiences most underestimate the impact of. "After the 50-to-60-minute mark, I re-cut the creature animation and tried to work on it more," the director says.

IndieWire's Chris O'Falt notes: "Like most people at Cannes, I loved the first third of the film and found the rest disappointing. But the revised 'Hope' played from start to finish like one of the best action films I've seen in years."