This weekend saw the premier of both Practical Magic 2 and The Uprising, and normally, I would have gone to see at least one of those movies–most likely The Uprising to be honest, but there was a chance to see the second. However, my girlfriend wants to see both of those movies, and when she wants to see something, I generally hold off on seeing it myself until she is free. Normally, we would have seen one of them this weekend. But…she’s out of town. We’ll have to try and catch it later. Then again, I never did write a review for the original Practical Magic when I watched it with her a few months ago (it’s fine).
But, the Korean weird creature attack movie Hope also came out this weekend, and if it is as good as the trailers make it look, I can expect to have a damn good time at the movies. I went to see that.
So, I had a damn good time at the movies. I also figure this is the sort of movie where maybe knowing less before going to see it will help, but the trailers, posters, and ad campaign have shown a few things, but I won’t be mentioning them here. What I will say is this: the movie opens with Chief Ko Bum-seok (Hwang Jung-min) of the small village of Hope Harbor driving his cousin Ko Sung-ki (Zo In-sung) to a site where Sung-ki and his hunting buddies found something unusual: a dead bull in the road, but one mauled by claws that are too big for a bear. The hunters suggest a tiger, something Bum-seok finds unlikely, but what he can say for certain is there is something dangerous out there that they need to take care of. Sung-ki and his friends offer to go look for the killer on their own in the nearby woods while Bum-seok starts calling in favors because he doesn’t have much in the way of other police officers or guns (or so he thinks) to defend a town that is made up mostly of senior citizens.
As it is, both men run into trouble. Sung-ki and his friends find a local cattle farmer and his barn has been ripped apart. Bum-seok finds a trail of destruction running through the town, leaving dead people and debris in its wake. Whatever it is, it’s large, strong, fast, and apparently, bulletproof. While Sung-ki’s plotline starts off as the quieter one, Bum-seok has to navigate his village even as many well-armed groups of citizens keep showing up, attacking something Bum-seok can’t seem to get a good look at, but whatever it is, it’s dangerous. What is this thing? Why is it attacking? Can it be stopped?
For roughly the first hour, the movie plays out as a taut suspense story. This unseen, unknown thing is attacking the town. Cars go flying over roofs. People shoot at something off-camera. Bum-seok is scared out of his mind, and rightfully so. All he sees is what the creature has done. He doesn’t know what it is. Then, when he (and the audience) finally get a good look at the monster, the movie shifts to more of a straightforward action movie, perhaps best punctuated when rookie Officer Im Sung-ae (Jung Ho-yeon) shows up with some really heavy firepower and royally pissed off that this thing is killing people. That said, I have seen enough Korean cinema to know that movies like Hope are probably going to be harder to pin down as a genre. Arguably, it starts off as a horror movie, turns into an action-thriller, has strong sci-fi elements, and it actually genuinely funny in places with a really dark sense of humor. All I can say is the movie delivered exactly what I wanted it to be, right down to a very short mid-credits scene.
Oh, and while actors Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander are mentioned quite prominently on the posters, let’s just say that to say who they are playing would be something of a spoiler, so I think I’ll just end the review right here.
Grade: A
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