'Hope,' Korea's biggest gamble, comes to Cannes. Its director is ready to level up

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CANNES, France — The movies of Na Hong-jin aren’t hard to love — they’re as obsession-worthy as the stylish rigor with which they are made.His 2008 debut, “The Chaser,” found new febrility in the post-Fincher serial killer thriller.

“The Wailing” somehow added ghosts, demon-possessed children and inky black crows to the mix with a near-crazed sense of showmanship.That was 10 years ago.Na, 51, now sits on the other side of a project that has consumed him for years, a sci-fi action film called “Hope” that arrives with expensive CGI, a pair of A-list stars (Michael Fassbender and Oscar-winner Alicia Vikander) and James Cameron-sized franchise ambitions.

It will undoubtedly make Na’s gallows-humor-inflected brand more global, even if it lifts him out of the cult niche that’s nourished him to date.Movies Jane Schoenbrun’s “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma” supplied slasher-inspired juiciness while “Fatherland” marked the return of Sandra Hüller (“Anatomy of a Fall”).Cannes is an unlikely place to launch “Hope.” That could be seen as a sign that the festival’s increasing accommodation of blockbuster bigness doesn’t need Hollywood.

Na sits in the corner of a Côte d’Azur waterfront lounge on a glorious midday, the sky an almost abstract blue.He tugs at his goatee distractedly.

His world premiere is tonight.Neon, the distributor currently enjoying a six-year Palme d’Or winning streak, will release “Hope” in America sometime after its summer bow in Na’s native South Korea.The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

It also contains significant spoilers.When did you realize that you had a big sci-fi alien monster movie in you?The idea came to me in 2017 in Seoul.The premise started off with somebody watching news in a diner or a small restaurant.

It was that image that I had in my head.So I started ...