In the backwater town of Hope Harbour nothing much happens as it is mostly full of old people these days and it is so close to the DMZ that there are signs about mines. The cousin of the police chief finds a mutilated cow when they out hunting and asks him to come look at it. They are not sure what it is but seem to decide on it being a Siberian Tiger way out of its range due to what a wild Ginseng hunter said (he didn’t actually say it). Although he is not happy about it, the police chief agrees to get some more people to investigate and tells the hunters to get some people up into the mountains to try and track it down.

Driving back through town he notices a hole in a building that definitely was not there before and it is on for young and old! Quite apart from the fact that it is more fun for you to see what happens in this first sequence yourself, I am not going to bother describing it. I almost thought they were going to do a rug pull and there is no monster, people are just going mad and shooting each other.

I do like the funny lines when the police chief demands to know where people got heavy weapons from at such short notice “it doesn’t matter right now!” and the granny packing the ammo. Also, people wanting to give him something to eat like that is the thing he cares about at the moment.

I was the annoying one yelling at the screen in some scenes and also laughing in the tension-break scenes. They can have really graphic violence and then something like the poop story and you still laugh. To be fair the jokes were also in his previous movies from what I remember. I remark on it if it is something new every time! A lot of crime stories are far too serious these days!

Hwang Jung-min is perfect in this role as I could not imagine Song Kang Ho playing the rural police officer now as it would be parody of himself like pretty much Emergency Declaration turned out. Plus, the fact he would be too old for the physical demands of this role now. He is in the director’s previous movie the Wailing but plays the exorcist in that movie.

Hoyeon as the deputy went from Squid Game to this and does very well for herself. Certainly not the comedy relief or underused. She is dumping out magazine after magazine of heavy machine gun ammo and firing the grenades from it like a pro!

The weapon use in this movie seems a lot more true-to-life than you would usually see in an action movie. Pretty sure most of the people on the crew would have served in the army at one point and they had access to all the advisors they would need if they are spending this much money!

I did not have a problem with the way the monsters were portrayed in special effects. They certainly took their time actually revealing them. Time on screen for these effects is money and towards the end it gets quite busy.

Not sure why people are getting upset at this movie? Na Hong-jin does exactly what he did in his other movies, not quite as punishing as he did in the Wailing or the Chaser or the Yellow Sea but it does put a different perspective on the whole thing. The characters start to work these things out themselves as it goes along but still blame the monsters for their actions.

I never managed to get my feelings towards the Wailing into a form that I could actually put down so there’s that!

I am not going to spoil the reason why there are some big Hollywood names in this, they were not actually in the same room as each other when they recorded it.

It has been a long time since an action movie made me feel real feelings. Not sure people are prepared for that, which is the reason why they are having such a poor reaction to it. It is quite long for one of these sorts of films so I am not sure I will see it again too soon but I will try to see the Wailing and the director’s other work again soon.

I was going to try and see this on IMAX but could not find a screening time that suited me and it was cheaper at a normal sized screen anyway. Maybe that’s something I can do on Grand Final Day if it is indeed still on by then.

Film details:

Director: Na Hong-jin

Producer: Na Hong-jin, Saemi Kim, Saerom Kim

Screenwriter: Na Hong-jin

Cinematographer: Hong Kyung-pyo

Composer: Michael Abels

Key Cast: Hwang Jung-min, Zo In-sung, Hoyeon, Taylor Russell, Cameron Britton, Alicia Vikander, Michael Fassbender

Year: 2026

Length: 160 mins

Country: South Korea

Language: English, Korean

Genre: Thriller, Sci-Fi

Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJ4Agn_cLY4

Poster