Na Hong-jin Cast Fassbender and Vikander as Unrecognizable Aliens in ‘Hope’

There was another reason to hire stars capable of vanishing beneath effects: Na had written a much longer story. Gold Derby reported that the original plot was three times the length of the film now in theaters. The current movie ends before the aliens’ stories fully begin, according to Na. The performers were signing onto the larger idea, even if much of that material remained outside this first chapter.

Vikander was the first actor cast, Na told Gold Derby. He raised the project while they were preparing another film, and she agreed immediately. At Cannes, Vikander said she had seen Na’s “The Chaser,” “The Yellow Sea” and “The Wailing” at the Busan International Film Festival when she was 21. She had wanted to work with him before he brought her the alien story. Fassbender joked that Vikander told him to do it. Russell said the chance to work in another country and make Korean films appealed to her.

Photos: Gabriel Hutchinson · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source 1, source 2

The human stars had to carry the danger in plain sight

The Korean cast had the more exposed job. Their faces remain visible while the aliens are rebuilt digitally, and the action keeps pushing them through wreckage, roads and forests. TheWrap reported that Zo had knee surgery and initially warned Na he might struggle to run. He ran through the film anyway.

Hoyeon said at Cannes that the camera stayed close to the actors’ faces during intense scenes, so she had to control every expression. The Associated Press described her entrance as Sung-ae — driving into the chase while firing from a squad car — as one of the movie’s immediate sparks. Hwang also performs long runs, but he said he changed his movement depending on whether a human or an alien was behind him.

Those choices put the burden of scale on the performers. A computer creature can be made enormous later. Fear on a face has to arrive during the take, in a real place, with real people moving around it.

Photos: Gabriel Hutchinson · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source 1, source 2

Na’s aliens are meant to unsettle human ideas about “the other”

Hope Harbor is surrounded by minefields and warnings about infiltration. The town’s isolation makes every outsider look dangerous, Na told Gold Derby. He wanted the setting to show a community that turns against what it calls the other, while also asking viewers to understand the beings entering that space.

In Gizmodo’s interview, Na said the film’s cosmic viewpoint is friendlier to the aliens than to the humans. He wanted to show mankind’s primitive impulses without making the movie solemn, using dark humor to keep those ideas moving. That helps explain the film’s odd balance: a chainsaw medical examination, a villager trying to hide while suffering an embarrassing bodily emergency, and then a shift toward the creatures’ own language and fears.

The Associated Press reported that Fassbender, Vikander and Russell’s alien sounds eventually receive subtitles. Their characters are not decoration around a human chase. The movie gives them a claim on the audience’s attention.

A sequel would put the aliens closer to the center

Na has already written a sequel, TheWrap and Hypebeast reported after the Cannes premiere. He said the story after this film would move into night, with more backstory possibly set in space. TheWrap also reported that the actors’ stories truly begin after the ending of the current movie.

That plan makes the casting easier to read. Fassbender, Vikander and Russell are not there only to make a Korean monster picture look international. They are the faces Na wants to remove, then restore in a different form. For now, the audience meets them as wounded bodies in the woods. The next film, if it happens, may ask us to stay with them after the humans stop shooting.