SEOUL, April 10 (AJP) - Na Hong-jin breaks a four-year silence for South Korean titles at Cannes with Hope, a big-budget thriller that puts him back in the Palme d’Or race.
The South Korean director’s fourth feature was named to the 21-film Competition lineup unveiled Thursday (local time), marking the first time since Decision to Leave in 2022 that a Korean film has entered the festival’s top-tier section.
The return carries weight beyond selection. Hope is Na’s most ambitious project to date — both in scale and in reach — positioning him not just as a returning auteur but as a director making a calculated leap into the global mainstream.
Set in a fictional port village near the Demilitarized Zone, the film unfolds as a science-fiction thriller centered on a mysterious presence that plunges the community into crisis.
It is also his first project partially shot in English, with a hybrid cast that bridges Korean and Hollywood talent. The lineup pairs Hwang Jung-min, Zo In-sung and Jung Ho-yeon with Oscar-winning couple Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander, alongside Taylor Russell and Cameron Britton.
The scale reflects that ambition. With a production budget exceeding 50 billion won ($37 million), Hope ranks among the most expensive Korean films ever made and marks the first Cannes Competition entry for its distributor, Plus M Entertainment.
The selection extends Na’s long-standing relationship with Cannes. His debut The Chaser screened in the Midnight section in 2008, followed by The Yellow Sea in Un Certain Regard and The Wailing in the Out of Competition section in 2016 — the latter cementing his reputation for blending genre with unsettling atmosphere.
This year’s Competition lineup features a heavyweight field of international auteurs, including Pedro Almodóvar, Asghar Farhadi, Hirokazu Kore-eda and Ryusuke Hamaguchi, setting up a tightly contested Palme d’Or race.
The 79th Cannes Film Festival will run from May 12 to 23 in Cannes, France.
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