A/N: I have no idea how this post ended up so long lmaoo

I genuinely have NO IDEA how I feel about this movie. I went in completely blind because my sister just randomly asked if I wanted to watch it, and my mom came too. The only thing I knew was that people kept comparing it to The Wailing, so I was like, "oh okay I guess I know the vibe"... turns out I DID NOT KNOW THE VIBE 😭

Literally from the opening i was already getting annoyed bc WHAT IS THAT THING ON THE GROUND??? JUST SHOW ME ALREADY??? Everyone just kept talking and talking about everything EXCEPT the thing I actually wanted to see 😭 but then they'd suddenly hit me with one of the prettiest shots I've seen all year. The dead cow lying in that field?? i couldn't even tell it was a cow at first because i was too busy staring at how gorgeous everything looked! I was literally sitting there going "wow this cinematography..." and then immediately "...okay but WHAT IS THAT???" 😭 then they finally show the cow in disgusting detail and I immediately wanted to leave the theater 💀

meanwhile I'm sitting there because the movie is literally called Hope, trying to find hope in EVERYTHING 😭 Seong-ae appears? "THIS IS IT!! SHE'S GONNA SAVE EVERYONE!!" Then Seong-gi shows up. "OKAY MAYBE HE'S THE HOPE." Then the old couple hiding under blankets, shooting from the truck "WAIT... IS THIS THE HOPE?? OLD PEOPLE REFUSING TO GIVE UP???" I became weirdly obsessed with figuring out where the title fit into the story... and then Beom-seok would mess something up and there goes my hope again 💀

Honestly, everything before the Attack on Titan-looking creature appeared?? I LOVED the suspense because just like Beom-seok, I hadn't actually seen the monster either and I kept asking WHAT EVEN IS THIS THING??? After delaying the reveal for so long, I built the creature up so much in my head 😭 I saw those footprints and imagined some horrifying animal and then... a giant humanoid titan walks out and I literally went "...huh?" I was genuinely disappointed because it immediately reminded me of Attack on Titan, and later the others kept reminding me of The Fifth Element, Avatar, and Demogorgons from Stranger Things! I spent half the movie thinking "haven't I seen this before??"

Then suddenly ALIENS????? WHAT?????? 😭 I genuinely didn't even know this was sci-fi! I was sitting there making up completely different explanations "Is this some North Korean experiment because we're near the DMZ?? radioactive mutation?? military secret???" and then BOOM spaceships 😭 and honestly WHY DIDN'T THE MILITARY SHOW UP IMMEDIATELY???? you're literally next to the DMZ 😭 surely somebody would've arrived.

When the giant titan thing started crying i didn't even notice because i was too busy being grossed out 😭 my sister had to whisper "wait... isn't that crying?" and i was like "...THOSE ARE TEARS???" 😭 then during the autopsy scene i spent the entire time expecting it to suddenly wake up while my mom was just impressed that the female pathologist calmly kept doing her job Meanwhile that district chief's son at the police station made me irrationally angry because PEOPLE EXACTLY LIKE THAT EXIST! Every disaster has that one person who refuses to listen and somehow makes everything worse

And then Eum Moon-seok somehow became even more frustrating... people like him are genuinely terrifying because they aren't malicious on purpose... they're just unbelievably clueless. They ruin everyone's lives and never realize THEY are the problem. I've literally met people like that

Then when Eum Moon-seok started talking about aliens i instantly bought into his theory 😭 "WAIT ARE THEY LOOKING FOR THEIR BABY???" "IS THAT WHY THE TITAN WAS CRYING???" "WAS THAT ITS MOM???" Turns out nope 😭 but honestly if someone stole my baby i'd probably be angry too! NOT "DESTROY AN ENTIRE TOWN" ANGRY BUT STILL

Then Haesul Ajusshi says there are more monsters and I actually loved that nobody wasted twenty minutes going "crazy old man!!" Everybody was just like "oh... Haesul said that?? then it's probably true." Efficient king honestly. By the end if that man told me a whale landed on the moon i'd believe him 😭

then Seong-gi's kids casually get on the spaceship and i'm like THEY'VE NEVER EVEN BEEN ON A PLANE HOW ARE THEY ACCEPTING THIS SO FAST??? if somebody pointed at that thing and said "that's a spaceship" I'd spend at least thirty minutes going "...is it though???"

And can movie characters PLEASE STOP TOUCHING THINGS AFTER SOMEONE TELLS THEM NOT TO TOUCH THEM!! If somebody says don't shoot MAYBE DON'T SHOOT! But honestly I'd already accepted those characters were exactly the type to do something stupid 😭 And Seong-gi... HOW WAS HE STILL ALIVE??? 😭 Every five minutes I'd go "okay NOW he's definitely dead." nope 😭 coughing blood?? alive 😭 heart ripped out?? alive 😭 heart comes back somehow?? STILL ALIVE. At some point I just gave up asking questions

My mom actually interpreted the whole movie completely differently than me. She said the message was about never giving up no matter how impossible things become and if you just keep moving eventually a path opens. Meanwhile I walked out thinking WHAT EVEN IS THIS MOVIE! Then I started reading interpretations online because I genuinely thought I'd missed something, and honestly... I don't think I did. I think the confusion IS the point 😭

The more I read about Na Hong-jin's films, the more I started thinking maybe this is just... him. The Chaser, The Wailing, The Yellow Sea... they all seem obsessed with humans desperately trying to understand something fundamentally beyond them and then getting absolutely crushed by how meaningless that struggle becomes.

Maybe the alien conversations AREN'T actually important. Maybe the point is that we THINK they're important because we desperately want answers. Maybe shifting away from the human characters is intentional because suddenly even we've stopped caring about the people we've spent two and a half hours following. Hopo Harbor ends up feeling microscopic compared to whatever insane cosmic conflict is happening out there, and that's honestly kind of horrifying. Cosmic horror isn't really "scary aliens." it's realizing the universe doesn't even notice you exist. Maybe that's why Beom-seok looks completely broken near the end while Seong-ae keeps saying not to lose hope. Maybe he realizes everything they've done means absolutely nothing against something that huge, but then... maybe Na Hong-jin actually softened a little?? because that post-credit scene weirdly felt like "...okay maybe humans ARE insignificant... but maybe continuing to struggle anyway still matters somehow??" OR MAYBE I'M COMPLETELY WRONG I DON'T KNOW

Honestly, I still think the editing is probably my biggest issue. Everything before Hwang Jung-min fought the titan-looking alien was fantastic. After that it started feeling messy. There were so many scenes I'd happily cut just to spend more time exploring the mystery. explain the two alien species 😭 explain why they're both here, explain literally ANYTHING

And don't even get me started on Jo In-sung's chase scene because I have NEVER seen a chase where the monster is sprinting with everything it has while the horse is basically enjoying a peaceful afternoon walk 😭 the speeds didn't even remotely match. It completely killed the tension for me

but then the action in general??? AMAZING. The cinematography was gorgeous from beginning to end. That's honestly what's driving me insane because I keep going "the pacing was frustrating." BUT THE VISUALS 😭 "the CGI disappointed me." BUT THE ACTION "i don't understand what happened." BUT THE CINEMATOGRAPHY 😭

I don't even know if I liked this movie 😭 I wouldn't tell people "YOU HAVE TO WATCH THIS" but I'd definitely say "honestly... just watch it because I need somebody else to explain whatever the hell I just watched"

Maybe hope is just people refusing to stop moving even when the universe doesn't care. Maybe the entire point is that searching for one clear answer is exactly the mistake both the characters AND the audience keep making. OR MAYBE I'M OVERTHINKING EVERYTHING. Seriously though... WHAT EVEN IS THIS MOVIE !

7/10