Hope Director Na Hong-Jin Explains Why The Aliens Look That Way

When Na Hong-jin set out to make Hope, he didn’t intend it to be the most expensive South Korean movie ever made. “That thought has never crossed my mind as I was preparing this film,” the filmmaker behind The Wailing and The Chaser tells Inverse.

But as the high-octane alien-invasion thriller moved from Na’s storyboards to reality, and Hollywood stars Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander, and Taylor Russell joined the cast, production costs ballooned. The budget is reported to have reached almost 100 billion won, or $74.3 million. But when you see the finished product, it’s easy to see why Hope became so costly. A nonstop thrill ride that barrels from one frenzied set piece to the next, Hope follows the residents of a sleepy small coastal town that comes under attack from monstrous aliens. The action moves along at a breathless pace, which Na had envisioned from the very beginning.

“When I was developing the action scenes for the film, I storyboarded it first, and I tried to execute what I storyboarded as best as I could,” Na says.

“I think you can see what you saw at Cannes as sort of a progress to a final completion.”

When the buzzy film premiered at Cannes, expectations for it as the first Korean blockbuster of its kind were sky-high. However, those expectations may have also been an albatross for the film, which earned criticism for its shoddy CGI and wonky alien designs. Na admits that the cut of the film that premiered at Cannes was unfinished — “kind of like a halfway mark until the final release version,” he says — and led him to spend the following months finessing the visual effects. But as for the aliens’ design... well, yes, that’s how they’re supposed to look.

“The intention behind the look of the alien is to not look too obviously alien,” Na says, “because I wanted to maintain that curiosity of the audience wondering what exactly that is.”

Inverse spoke with Na about pulling off those wild action sequences, why the aliens all look a little different, and how important the comedy was to the movie.

This interview was conducted via translator and has been edited for clarity and brevity.

This movie is secretly a period piece that takes place in the ’90s, close to the border to North Korea. Why did you choose that setting?

I think it's because, as I was preparing the movie, I knew that I wanted to set this in a very isolated town in a remote corner of the country because I wanted the main characters, the human characters of this film, to be a community that's very consolidated and not open to outsiders. So I chose that setting because I thought it was a very simple and clear way to convey the symbolic message of the film and portray this consolidated community of people and their conflict with the aliens.

A lot of the characters use firearms against the aliens, and firearms are not widely available in South Korea. Was the setting also part of helping to establish that firearms were accessible to these characters?

I don't think the physical location had to do with how the characters use firearms. It's just the historical background of how there was a large war in the country, and I think their usage of firearms is connected to that historical background.

So much of the movie's action takes place in the aftermath of the aliens’ destruction, but these sequences involve some big stunts and long takes. What was the biggest challenge of shooting these scenes?

When I was developing the action scenes for the film, I storyboarded it first, and I tried to execute what I storyboarded as best as I could. And I think the biggest challenge was maintaining this fast speed of the objects that were filming without relying on CGI. So the challenge really was to follow this high-speed object and to shoot it at the same time. And because there were a lot of scenes like that, another challenge was to make sure that they don't look repetitive and that each shot can differentiate from each other.

Were there sequences from your storyboards that you had to cut either for time or other reasons that you wish could have made it into the film?

There were more scenes in the forest, but as we were shooting that sequence, we became too tired. So the [director of photography] and I just decided to stop there. The DP kept telling me, “OK, we've shot enough. Let's just go home now.” And he just kept repeating that, so we had to pack up and go home.

I want to ask about the aliens. I know that the aliens' look changed from the Cannes cut to the new edit, but I'm curious what the original inspiration for how they looked was.

First of all, to address how you said that the look of the aliens have changed from Cannes, I think you can see what you saw at Cannes as sort of a progress to a final completion. So it's kind of like a halfway mark until the final release version. And as for the inspiration behind the look of the alien, at the very beginning of the film, we are left with a lot of questions. As we look at the destruction that the characters are witnessing, we asked ourselves the question of “What caused this and what does it look like? What exactly is it, and why did it do this?” So there's a lot of mystery that is provided, and as the movie progresses, these mysteries are answered one by one. So that's why when we first discovered the alien, I didn't want the alien to look very clearly alien because to maintain that sense of mystery that's going to persist throughout the rest of the film.

“Since aliens are featured mostly in our action sequences, the designs are also made to be adequate to the action sequences as well.”

But the aliens that come later in the movie — now we already know the reasons for why they did what they did — the look of the aliens are supposed to convey more of the relationships between the aliens and the causes behind their decisions, and the different social status between these aliens as well. And on top of that, since aliens are featured mostly in our action sequences, the designs are also made to be adequate to the action sequences as well.

The first alien looks very different from the aliens that appear later. You could say that it doesn't look as beautiful as later aliens. Is there a social reason that it looks a little bit more monstrous?

I haven't thought that far in terms of the design of that first alien. As I've mentioned before, the intention behind the look of the alien is to not look too obviously alien, because I wanted to maintain that curiosity of the audience wondering what exactly that is. So I don't think there's particularly a social meaning behind the look of the aliens, but I think the movie as a whole is trying to convey this very simple social conflict and phenomena, but in terms of its narrative, but I haven't thought of that in terms of the design of the aliens per se.

“I wanted it to feel very funny and self-reflective.”

The tone of this movie is very comedic and often gross. Why was the style of comedy important for the film?

I did notice that the audience laughed a lot at Cannes as well, and it was partially my intention to make these scenes funny, but the method in which these comedy is conveyed is very much primal. And we see that these human characters within the film, they're criticizing and belittling the aliens that they're battling with, but we realized that the reason for this conflict actually lies within the humans. The core of this criticism actually lies within the humans themselves. And I wanted them to look and feel foolish, as if we're actually in that situation with the aliens, we might have done the same thing. But when we step back, and we look back at these humans doing what we could have been doing, I wanted it to feel very funny and self-reflective.

How did you balance the tone between some of the more serious scenes where we see the devastation that the aliens wrought and scenes where, for example, a character talks about seeing the aliens and accidentally touching his own poop? Was that something that was difficult to balance?

Yes, it was very difficult to find the balance. Since the runtime of the movie is already so long, I did need to ask myself that question of whether I need to maintain that poop conversation scene for that long. I think it ended up being around seven minutes long, and until the very last minute, I considered cutting it down, but I didn't.

Well, that was one of the standout scenes for the movie for me too.

I should have made it longer!

Hope is playing in theaters now.