Hope review – non-stop gonzo alien battling is top-quality entertainment

Na Hong-jin’s melee of running, chasing and shouting at the angry invaders is uproarious fun, mixing digital work with old-school spectacle Some uproarious rock’n’roll moviemaking from Korean director Na Hong-jin, a sci-fi action thriller mixing digital work with old-school analogue entertainment values, serving up a spectacle with cheeky touches of Spielberg, Walter Hill and one other director and movie franchise that it would be unsporting to specify at this stage. We are in the remote and sleepy retirees’ town of Hope in South Korea near the demilitarised zone (DMZ), where people already constitutionally used to the possibility of war and bloodshed, are astonished to hear of a farm animal killed and mangled – though not for food – by an unidentified beast. A careworn police chief, Beom-seok (Hwang Jung-min) shows up to the lonely stretch of field where the eerily clawed carcass is lying and exchanges testy remarks with the local hunters, who offer their theories about a tiger while grumpily submitting to his comments about the legal status of their rifles. It is a significant moment when the stunned Beom-seok removes his aviator-style sunglasses for a better look at