Poster for director Na Hong-jin’s film ‘Hope’. Photo Plus M Entertainment

Buzz is beginning to boil over for two Korean titles at the 79th Cannes Film Festival (hereafter the Cannes Film Festival), ‘Hope’ and ‘Gunche’.

This year’s Cannes selections include Na Hong-jin’s ‘Hope’ in Competition; Yeon Sang-ho’s ‘Gunche’ in the non-competition Midnight Screening; Jung Ju-ri’s ‘Dora’ in Directors’ Fortnight; and Choi Won-jung’s ‘Rhapsody of Birds’, which was invited to La Cinef.

Director Na Hong-jin (third from left) and the cast of the film ‘Hope’ pose on the red carpet as they attend a screening held at the Lumiere Grand Theatre in Cannes, France, on the 17th. Photo Plus M Entertainment

As two of the year’s most ambitious projects poised to anchor the Korean box office, ‘Hope’ and ‘Gunche’ are drawing heightened attention. Both have completed world premiere screenings at Cannes and are receiving active feedback from international outlets.

‘Hope’ held its world premiere at 9:30 p.m. on the 17th (local time) at the Lumiere Grand Theatre. Director Na Hong-jin and lead actors Hwang Jung-min, Jo In-sung, Jung Ho-yeon, Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander, and Taylor Russell attended the screening.

Director Na Hong-jin (third from right) and the cast of the film ‘Hope’ pose on the red carpet as they attend a screening held at the Lumiere Grand Theatre in Cannes, France, on the 17th. Photo Plus M Entertainment

Foreign press offered rave notices for its protean genre shifts and Na Hong-jin’s singular worldbuilding. ‘Variety’ wrote, “A film whose cinematic direction of breathlessly elegant action ranks among the best of any year,” while ‘The Hollywood Reporter’ said, “With dazzling camera work, heart-pounding music, relentless pacing, and sharply drawn characters, it grips the audience in an instant.”

Industry figures also added praise. Pascal Gavillet of ‘Tribune de Geneve’ said, “At the speed of a galloping wild horse, it overwhelms the other Competition titles. Not a single minute is superfluous,” and Jonatan Itkonen of ‘Region Free’ called it “the boldest and most exhilarating work realized on screen. You have to see it to believe it, and perhaps even that may not be enough.”

Poster for director Yeon Sang-ho’s film ‘Gunche’. Photo Showbox

‘Gunche’ met audiences for the first time in a Midnight Screening on the 16th, a day earlier. Director Yeon Sang-ho and principal cast Jun Ji-hyun, Koo Kyo-hwan, Ji Chang-wook, Shin Hyun-been, and Kim Shin-rok were in attendance.

Notable, too, were plaudits for the film as a new chapter in the ‘K-zombie’ saga. Samuel Jamier, president of the New York Asian Film Festival (NYAFF), said, “The film introduces a new physical lexicon for zombies; it’s formally innovative and viscerally tense, an unprecedented achievement in today’s genre cinema.”

Director Yeon Sang-ho (third from right) and the cast of the film ‘Hope’ pose on the red carpet as they attend a screening held at the Lumiere Grand Theatre in Cannes, France, on the 16th. Photo Showbox

The French magazine ‘Trois Couleurs’ wrote, “This well-crafted premise gives Korean director Yeon Sang-ho, adept in the thriller and horror genres, a perfect framework for staging intense, precise, and immersive action sequences. At times it even evokes the world of video games” and the editor Matt Neglia of the awards website ‘Next Best Picture’ called it “an unrelenting parade of thrills from start to finish, a tremendous jolt of genre pleasure.”

With both titles garnering solid notices on the ground, cautious speculation has begun about ‘Hope’s chances of a win in Competition. On the 19th, the UK film trade outlet ‘ScreenDaily’ gave ‘Hope’ a rating of 2.8 out of 4. Mathieu Macharet, a critic for the French daily ‘Le Monde’, awarded it a perfect 4.

Park Chan-wook, who is serving as president of the Competition jury at the 79th Cannes Film Festival, poses on the red carpet as he attends the screening of ‘Gunche’ held at the Lumiere Grand Theatre in Cannes, France, on the 16th. Photo Showbox

Although the full Competition slate has yet to be unveiled, making it premature to draw conclusions, external evaluations suggest it has secured an upper-tier position. Whether ‘Hope’ wins the Palme d’Or will be announced at the closing ceremony on the 23rd.

At the opening press conference, Park Chan-wook, the first Korean to serve as president of the Competition jury at Cannes, said, “As recently as 20 years ago, Korean films were only occasionally introduced, but now films from a variety of countries are being embraced,” while also emphasizing his balance as jury president: “That doesn’t mean we will give Korean films extra points.”