Michael Fassbender Sci-Fi Action Movie Debuts Chaotic New Look at the Epic

After acquiring some exciting films that premiered at film festivals throughout the year, Neon has begun promoting some of its upcoming movies slated for release in the coming months. The distributor is known for releasing plenty of exciting movies from a wide range of genres. Interestingly, the company has also consistently put out South Korean cinema in North American markets. One of Neon’s most popular releases is Bong Joon Ho’s film Parasite, which went on to win the Academy Awards for both Best Picture and Best International Feature. Now, the next South Korean film it is bringing to cinemas is an ambitious sci-fi blocksbuter titled Hope.

Neon has released a new behind-the-scenes featurette of Hope, directed by Na Hong-jin, who previously directed The Wailing in 2016. It’s been a decade since the filmmaker released a feature, and looking at this new video from Neon, it’s completely understandable why. Hope is an incredibly ambitious production, and the reviews from its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival consistently emphasized its epic scope. The creature feature relies heavily on its creative chase scenes, with every member of the production playing a crucial role in bringing the sci-fi movie to life.

An interesting aspect of Hope is the casting of the actors who will play the film’s aliens. Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander, Taylor Russell, and Cameron Britton all provide the voices of the creatures featured in the movie. They join the likes of Hwan Jung-miin, Zo In-sung, Hoyeon, and Eum Moon-suk. The new video showcasing the production team using wire work and practical stunts for the movie’s action demonstrates that Hope will also try not to over-rely on CGI to tell its story. Na Hong-jin clearly put as much as he could into the movie, as is evident from its runtime.

When Hope first premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, it had a runtime of 160 minutes. The nearly three-hour movie was slightly trimmed down after Neon’s acquisition, with a final cut runtime of 156 minutes. The movie has already received a theatrical release in South Korea in July and is set to release in theaters in the U.S. starting September 9. While critical reception of the movie has praised Na Hon-jin’s eye for action and chase sequences, there has been plenty of criticism of its runtime and visual effects, with the latter only being teased briefly in the first trailer.

At the time of this writing, Hope has a 77% “fresh” rating on the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 44 reviews. The reception isn’t overwhelmingly positive, but the reviews do seem to indicate that Neon has another solid film on their hands. The last prolific South Korean film that Neon acquired was Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice. It will be interesting to see what the general audience consensus is for the movie, especially since the special effects might be somewhat different from what North American audiences usually expect from sci-fi spectacle films with a similar genre and plot, which are instead produced by larger and more prominent film studios.