Korea Loved It, Hated It, and Argued About It. What Do American Audiences Think of ‘HOPE’?

Korea Loved It, Hated It, and Argued About It. What Do American Audiences Think of ‘HOPE’?

When Na Hong-jin’s HOPE opened in South Korea on July 15, 2026, people went to theaters in large numbers.

And then they started arguing about it.

Some viewers called it an ambitious, visually stunning Korean sci-fi blockbuster. Others thought the story was confusing, the dialogue was awkward, the CGI was disappointing, and the ending was frustrating.

In other words, HOPE became one of those movies that people could not simply watch and forget.

Now the film has arrived in North America.

It opened widely on September 9, and American audiences are beginning to have their own reaction to Na Hong-jin’s strange, violent, funny, and unusually ambitious monster movie.

So, do they see HOPE differently from Korean audiences?

The answer, at least so far, seems to be: yes — but perhaps not as much as you might expect.

A Huge Success in Korea — and a Very Divisive Movie

HOPE was one of the biggest Korean box-office stories of the summer.

The film opened with approximately 330,000 admissions on its first day, the strongest opening day for a film released in Korea in 2026 at the time. It passed two million admissions just five days after release. By September 8, its Korean theatrical run had reached more than 4.54 million admissions.

But there was an interesting contradiction.

People were going to see HOPE.

And many of those people were not sure they liked what they saw.

Soon after release, the CGV Golden Egg Index fell from 89% to around 81%, while Naver's actual-viewer rating was in the low 7s. Korean audience comments praised the film's visuals, acting, action, and immersive atmosphere, while other viewers complained about the dialogue, pacing, story logic, alien CGI, and ending.

That split became part of the movie's identity.

HOPE was not simply a hit.

It was a hit that people argued about.

And that may actually have helped the movie at the box office. As The Korea Times reported, the divided reaction generated considerable curiosity, helping the film pass two million admissions in only five days.

What Were Korean Audiences Expecting?

One reason the Korean reaction may have been so intense is the director.

Na Hong-jin is not an unknown filmmaker in Korea. He directed The Chaser, The Yellow Sea, and The Wailing — films that created very different expectations for his work.

After a ten-year wait following The Wailing, audiences were not simply going to see another monster movie.

They were going to see Na Hong-jin's new movie.

That matters.

For many Korean viewers, HOPE was judged not only as a science-fiction action film but also against the director's previous work.

Was it as psychologically intense as The Chaser?

As disturbing as The Wailing?

Did the new blockbuster scale come at the expense of the storytelling that audiences expected from Na Hong-jin?

Those questions became part of the conversation.

And HOPE made the comparison even harder because it is such an unusual mixture of genres.

It begins like a mysterious rural thriller.

Then it becomes a monster movie.

Then science fiction.

Then action.

Then dark comedy.

And eventually something much larger and stranger.

Even the film's 156-minute running time became part of the debate.

Now Americans Are Seeing It

North American audiences are coming to HOPE with a very different set of expectations.

For many American moviegoers, this is not "the new Na Hong-jin movie" in quite the same way.

It is a Korean science-fiction monster movie featuring Hwang Jung-min, Zo In-sung, Jung Ho-yeon, Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander, and Taylor Russell.

That is a very different starting point.

And the early audience reaction suggests that some viewers are embracing exactly what made the movie controversial in Korea.

As of September 10, HOPE has an 81% audience score from 50+ verified ratings on Rotten Tomatoes, compared with a 77% critics' score.

The early audience comments are revealing.

Some viewers praise the action.

Others praise the humor.

One audience member called it an "Absolute Pleasure" and simply wrote, "GREAT FILM!"

Another highlighted the "Amazing action sequences."

Another described it as intensely action-packed and hilarious.

One viewer even said that most of the theater applauded during something that happened during the credits.

That is a noticeably different emphasis from some of the early Korean criticism.

Instead of asking whether every part of the story works, some American viewers seem perfectly happy to accept HOPE as a wild cinematic ride.

And perhaps that is exactly what the movie wants them to do.

But Americans Are Not All Saying "Yes"

Of course, the North American reaction is not universally positive.

Some early audience reviews complain that the opening takes too long before the monster is revealed.

Others simply seem confused by what they have watched.

One viewer wrote that they were "not sure what I witnessed."

That reaction sounds remarkably familiar to Korean audiences.

The difference may be less about whether Americans understand the movie and more about what they expect from it.

For one viewer, HOPE's bizarre combination of action, comedy, horror, aliens, and social commentary may feel wonderfully unpredictable.

For another, the same combination may feel like too many movies squeezed into one.

The critics are divided in a similar way.

The Associated Press praised the film's ambition, performances, cinematography, and exhilarating action while pointing to uneven pacing and mixed reactions to the creature's CGI design.

The San Francisco Chronicle was considerably more enthusiastic, describing HOPE as an original and electrifying monster movie with engaging characters, memorable humor, and impressive action.

Meanwhile, the Houston Chronicle argued that the movie contains about 90 minutes of excellent action that is stretched across a much longer 160-minute experience.

So even in North America, the argument has already begun.

Maybe the Real Difference Is What We Expect From a Movie

This is where HOPE becomes more interesting than a simple Korea-versus-America comparison.

Korean audiences knew exactly who Na Hong-jin was.

They had ten years of anticipation behind them.

They knew The Chaser.

They knew The Yellow Sea.

They knew The Wailing.

They had seen Korean thrillers evolve over the past two decades.

And they were watching HOPE partly through that history.

American audiences, meanwhile, may be encountering HOPE more simply as an unusual Korean blockbuster.

A monster appears.

People run.

Cars crash.

People shoot at things.

There are aliens.

There is dark humor.

There are unexpected Hollywood stars.

And there is a lot of chaos.

For some viewers, that may be enough.

In fact, the early Rotten Tomatoes audience reviews suggest that some American moviegoers are enjoying precisely that sense of excess.

Korean audiences may be asking:

"Does all of this make sense?"

American audiences may sometimes be asking:

"Was that crazy? Yes. But was it fun?"

And those are very different questions.

The Interesting Thing About HOPE

Perhaps the most interesting thing about HOPE is that neither reaction is necessarily wrong.

The film is ambitious.

It is also messy.

It has spectacular action.

It also has uneven pacing.

It has impressive performances.

It also has dialogue that some viewers find difficult to take seriously.

It looks expensive and enormous.

Yet it deliberately mixes that scale with strange humor, rural Korean characters, absurd situations, and moments that feel almost like a dark comedy.

Even the creature itself has divided viewers.

Some see the visual design as strange and memorable.

Others find the CGI less convincing.

That contradiction seems to be built into HOPE itself.

It is a movie that seems determined to be several different things at once.

And perhaps that is why people keep talking about it.

So, What Do American Audiences Think?

It is still too early to give a final answer.

North America has only just begun its theatrical run, and the current audience score is based on a relatively small number of verified ratings compared with a fully established theatrical run.

But the early evidence is encouraging.

American audiences do not appear to be rejecting HOPE.

If anything, many seem to be enjoying its biggest strengths: the action, the spectacle, the bizarre humor, the creature design, and the sheer audacity of the film.

At the same time, the complaints are surprisingly familiar.

The movie is long.

The first act can feel slow.

The story can be confusing.

The CGI will not work for everyone.

And the final act may leave some viewers wondering what exactly they just watched.

So perhaps the most accurate answer is this:

Korea argued about HOPE because it expected a lot from Na Hong-jin.

America may be enjoying HOPE because it is discovering just how strange Na Hong-jin's blockbuster can be.

And somewhere between those two reactions is probably the movie itself.

HOPE is not a perfect film.

It may not even be an easy film.

But it is certainly a movie that gives people something to talk about.

And for a film called HOPE, that may be the most interesting thing of all.

What do you think?

If you have seen HOPE in Korea or North America, did you love it, hate it, or simply wonder what you had just watched?

Let us know.