Hopeless: a hard-hitting debut film from South Korea - Our review and trailer

Published by Nathanaël de Sortiraparis, Julie de Sortiraparis · Published on March 27, 2024 at 08:03 p.m.
Hopeless, Kim Chang-hoon's first film, starring Jong-Soo Kim, is in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, in the Un Certain Regard section, and is due in cinemas on April 17, 2024.

Hopeless, the first film by director Kim Chang-hoon, was presented in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival. A thriller about a gang of motorcycle thieves in a small, impoverished South Korean town.

The filmmaker recounts the initiatory journey of a young man ready to do anything to escape his violent daily life. To do so, he joins an even more violent gang. Hopeless is generous with fight scenes, but its first act drags on and on. It takes a while to get to the heart of the script. This first film shows promise, but suffers from serious pacing problems throughout. Worries with the protagonist's family, long scenes given over to non-essential secondary characters, and a third act that doesn't know where to place its end point... This script is perhaps a little too rich, and fails to focus on the essentials.

This hopeless world, where you can only express yourself with your fists, is quite fascinating. Hopeless is a film noir that explores the consequences of the desperate choices the characters are willing to make to escape reality. Director Kim Chang-hoon brilliantly depicts the oppressive atmosphere and tensions between the protagonists, but he'll certainly learn to manage his set-up better in his next films, which we can't wait to discover.

Trailer for Hopeless:

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Practical information

Dates and Opening Time
Starts April 17, 2024

× Approximate opening times: to confirm opening times, please contact the establishment.
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