The 2026 Cannes Film Festival has unveiled another horror release with South Korea’s Na Hong-jin‘s upcoming cosmic horror film Hope, with a first look teaser being screened by NEON Pictures. The film stars Hwang Jung-min, Zo In-sung and Hoyeon, with additional roles played by Taylor Russell, Cameron Britton, Alicia Vikander, and Michael Fassbender.
Hope, original title huimang, will focus on a village police chief and his new rookie cop, who find themselves protecting their community from the threat of a tiger after wildfires take down the nearby area, but their job soon spirals into something more chaotic and terrifying.
Na’s film will compete for the ultimate Cannes prize of the Palme d’Or, making it the first South Korean feature to eye up the prize following the 2022 competitor Decision to Leave (Heeojil gyeolsim) by Park Chan-Wook. Hope is also Na’s junior Cannes release, following The Chaser (chugyeokja) in 2008, The Yellow Sea (Hwanghae) in 2011, and The Wailing (Gokseong) in 2016.
NEON will handle distribution of the film in English-speaking territories while Mubi takes on the job for Latin America, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Spain and Turkey.
Additional South Korean features which have debuted in Cannes include Park’s The Handmaiden (Agassi), Kim Tae-gon’s Project Silence (Talchul: peurojekteu sailleonseu), Lee Chang-dong’s Burning (bul-taneun) and Bong Joon Ho’s Orka.
Train to Busan’s Yeon Sang-ho is also set to see his survival horror Colony (Gun-che) debut at the festival.
Bong’s Parasite (gi-saeng-chung) is one of the country’s most successful and memorable releases at Cannes, becoming the first Korean film to take home the Palme d’Or before making more history as the first non-English-language film to win the Academy Award for Best Feature Film at the 92nd Academy Awards.
NEON will release Hope at an autumn date.
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