Hope Wins 3 Yeongpyeong Awards: Na Hong-jin, Zo In-sung

[FEATURED PHOTO: Wikimedia Commons — “Na Hong-Jin, Hoyeon Jung and Zo In-Sung at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival.jpg” — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Na_Hong-Jin,_Hoyeon_Jung_and_Zo_In-Sung_at_the_2026_Cannes_Film_Festival.jpg] Zo In-sung, Jung Ho-yeon and Na Hong-jin at the Hope photocall, Cannes Film Festival, May 18, 2026. Photo: Gabriel Hutchinson / WikiPortraits / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

On Wednesday evening, November 4, 2026, at the Korean Film Archive’s Cinematheque KOFA in Seoul, Na Hong-jin’s Hope won three prizes at the 46th Korean Film Critics Association Awards, known in Korea as the Yeongpyeong Awards: Best Director for Na, Best Actor for Zo In-sung and Best Cinematography for Hong Kyung-pyo. No other film took home more trophies that night (Wikitree, Oct. 20; JTBC, Nov. 4, 2026). Lee Chang-dong’s Possible Love won Best Film, and Jeon Do-yeon took Best Actress for it. Zo walked up and opened with a confession: “I really wanted to win the Yeongpyeong Award. Critics vote for it, and that’s exactly why I wanted to receive it at least once” (JTBC, Nov. 4, 2026).

I’ll be honest: as a fan of Na Hong-jin’s films, I’ve been waiting ten years for a night like this. The Wailing came out in 2016. Then came a long wait, and he came back with a monster film that played in competition at Cannes and sold more than 4.5 million tickets at home. Tonight the people who watch movies for a living stood up and said it out loud.

The full ceremony, streamed live on the association’s own YouTube channel.

What happened at KOFA

The prizes. Best Director (Na Hong-jin), Best Actor (Zo In-sung) and Best Cinematography (Hong Kyung-pyo). The association named the winners on October 20 after its final deliberation on October 16. It judged Korean features released between October 2025 and September 2026 (Wikitree, Oct. 20; Etoday, Oct. 19, 2026).
How it’s decided. There’s no fan vote and no box-office points. Association members vote in a preliminary round, then the critics settle the winners in a final deliberation (JTBC, Nov. 4, 2026). That’s why actors treat this trophy a little differently.
Who was there. Na Hong-jin and Hong Kyung-pyo came in person, along with Zo In-sung, Jeon Do-yeon, Hyun Bin, Shin Hye-sun, Jang Young-nam and Ye Soo-jung. Actors Jo Han-cheol and Jang Sun hosted (Sports Hankook, Nov. 4, 2026).
The top ten. Hope also made the association’s annual “Yeongpyeong Top 10” list of the year’s best Korean films (Spotv News, Oct. 19, 2026).

Zo In-sung’s speech, the best speech of the night

Zo began with a confession, and then he got funny. He and Jeon Do-yeon, he said, found out they had won surprisingly late. “Sul Kyung-gu sent the article to our group chat and wrote, ‘You guys are getting it.’ That’s how we found out. I want to thank Sul Kyung-gu, who told us faster than anyone” (JTBC). The three are co-stars in Possible Love, and you could hear how much affection is in that group chat.

Then he got serious about Hope. “When you’ve been acting for a long time, it isn’t easy to show something new. There’s a really strong urge not to copy yourself, and I think you can only break out of it when a director wants to show a side of you that isn’t even in the script,” he said. “I sincerely thank Director Na Hong-jin for giving me a new moment” (JTBC).

He also thanked Ryoo Seung-wan, the director of Humint, his first film this year: “This year, without planning it, I ended up meeting audiences with three films. Director Ryoo is where it all started. Thanks to him I met Director Na, and on the Humint set he even became the link that got me on the phone with Director Lee Chang-dong” (JTBC). Three films, three directors, one year.

And then the line that made the room laugh. “The Possible Love team has been going out to dinner a lot lately, and Do-yeon noona spends an hour praising Yeo-jeong and me. The more I hear it, the greedier I get, so I’d love it if she went over an hour. Noona, please” (JTBC). He saved the last thank-you for the people in the seats: “A film is only finished when it meets its audience. I want to give all of this glory to the audience” (JTBC; News1, Nov. 4, 2026).

That’s Zo In-sung for you: a little teasing, a lot of gratitude, and every thank-you aimed at somebody else.

MUBI’s official trailer for the film’s international release.

Hope: the film that won the critics over

Hope is set in Hope Harbor, a small village near the Demilitarized Zone. The local police chief, Bum-seok (Hwang Jung-min), hears from the village’s young men that a tiger has been spotted. The whole village goes on alert, and what they find turns out to be something far stranger than a tiger (JTBC, Nov. 4, 2026; Wikipedia). Zo plays Ko Sung-ki, the hot-headed local who leads the hunt, a role JTBC described as “throwing his whole body” past human limits. Jung Ho-yeon plays a rookie officer, and Alicia Vikander, Michael Fassbender and Taylor Russell join the cast (Wikipedia).

The numbers behind it:

Cannes. World premiere in the main competition at the 79th Cannes Film Festival on May 17, 2026 (Wikipedia; Maeil Business).
Box office. Plus M Entertainment released it in Korea on July 15. By October 19 it had drawn 4,536,360 moviegoers, the third-biggest Korean film of the year (Wikitree, Oct. 2026).
Blue Dragon. On October 28 it led the 47th Blue Dragon Film Awards nominations with ten, the most of any film (Jeonnam Ilbo, Oct. 28, 2026).
4K at home. When it arrived on Korean video on demand on October 21, it came in 4K as well as HD, which Korean reports called unusual for a Korean film (Ilgan Sports, Oct. 15, 2026).

Na explained the change in his films at a Busan International Film Festival masterclass on October 8. “My films have always been a journey into a dark cave without a single light,” he said. “Before, I didn’t show the light even at the very end. But as I get older, I find myself wanting the audience to really feel that light” (Sports Hankook, Oct. 2026). For a director whose last film was The Wailing, a title like Hope is a statement in itself.

Netflix’s English-subtitled trailer for Ryoo Seung-wan’s spy film, the first of Zo In-sung’s three films this year.

Netflix’s official trailer for Lee Chang-dong’s film, the third, which won Best Film tonight.

Na Hong-jin’s films: four features, no small ones

Year	Film	What it did
2008	The Chaser	His debut feature, a serial-killer thriller. He got the idea from detectives he met over drinks at a neighborhood bar (Sports Hankook)
2010	The Yellow Sea	Researched by flying to Yanbian, China, and talking to people who knew that world firsthand (Sports Hankook)
2016	The Wailing	He lived with shamans for months in a mountain hermitage to understand Korean shamanism (Sports Hankook). Shot by Hong Kyung-pyo
2026	Hope	Cannes competition, 4.5 million admissions, ten Blue Dragon nominations. Yeongpyeong Best Director, Best Actor, Best Cinematography

Trailer from Haut et Court, the film’s French distributor.

Trailer via KoBiz, the Korean Film Council.

Three turning points

2008, a debut nobody saw coming. The Chaser started with a story a detective told him over a soccer match and a few drinks. Na told the Busan audience that this is how all his films begin: he goes where the story is, meets the people, and listens (Sports Hankook). That first film made his name.
2016, the long immersion. For The Wailing, he got so close to a shaman’s family that he lived in a mountain hermitage with shamans for months. “I even reached the point of feeling things, and even seeing them,” he said (Sports Hankook). It’s the kind of commitment that makes his films feel like they were dug out of the ground.
2026, ten years later, a cave with a light at the end. Hope was his first film in a decade, and the biggest he has made: Korean stars side by side with Hollywood names, a monster story set by the DMZ. The critics’ Best Director award says what audiences already showed at the box office: the wait was worth it.

Well Go USA’s official trailer for Na’s previous film.

Why this triple is so lovely

The director and his cinematographer, together again. Hong Kyung-pyo shot The Wailing for Na, and he also shot Burning for Lee Chang-dong and Parasite for Bong Joon-ho. Tonight he picked up the cinematography prize for Hope. In a year when Possible Love swept the top film prize, it’s a sweet bit of symmetry that the man behind Burning‘s camera won for the other big film of the night.

Well Go USA’s official trailer for Lee Chang-dong’s film, shot by Hong Kyung-pyo.

NEON’s official trailer, also shot by Hong Kyung-pyo.

An actor who still wants something new. Zo In-sung has been a star for more than two decades, and on a stage full of critics he talked about his fear of copying himself. He thanked a director for finding a side of him that wasn’t in the script. That hunger, after all these years, is the most attractive thing about him.

Three films that keep their eyes on people. Na’s genre films are loud and frightening, but they all started from listening to people: detectives, Yanbian locals, shamans. The critics rewarded the director, the lead actor and the cinematographer. That’s the whole frame, from the story to the face to the light.

Where to watch Hope

Korea: Paid video on demand since October 21 on IPTV (KT, SK Broadband, LG U+), Apple TV, Wavve, Coupang Play, TVING and Watcha, in HD and 4K. A subscription streaming date hasn’t been announced (Ilgan Sports, Oct. 15, 2026; checked Nov. 4, 2026). TVING
US and international: MUBI is distributing the film. Hope on MUBI (checked Nov. 4, 2026, US page).
Possible Love, Zo’s third film this year, premieres worldwide on Netflix on Friday, November 6, 2026 (checked Nov. 4, 2026, US and Korea).

Next up is the Blue Dragon Film Awards later this month, where Hope goes in with more nominations than any other film. I’ll be watching with my fingers crossed for Na, for Zo, for Hong, and for that light at the end of the cave.

Sources

Featured photo: Zo In-sung, Jung Ho-yeon and Na Hong-jin at the Hope photocall, Cannes Film Festival, May 18, 2026. Photo: Gabriel Hutchinson / WikiPortraits / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped and resized).

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Na Hong-jin’s Hope Just Won Three Korean Film Critics Awards. Zo In-sung: “I Really Wanted This One”