DUBAI: With “Hope,” director Na Hong-jin serves up one of the year’s most entertaining cinematic experiences. There are influences a-plenty on show — Spielberg and Tarantino, to name two — but Hong-jin’s mix of breathless action, gory violence, slapstick humor, and pathos has a flavor all its own.

The action is set in the eponymous small town near the demilitarized zone that separates South and North Korea. It starts familiarly enough — a mutilated farm animal is found in the middle of the road by local hunters and the police chief, the world-weary, well-respected Beom-seok (Hwang Jung-min) is called out to investigate. Initial suspicions fall on a tiger rumored to roam the mountains. It quickly becomes clear, though, that whatever was responsible is much, much bigger than a tiger.

Almost immediately, the action begins. That means a lot (a lot) of running, shouting, shooting, fast driving, dead bodies, and several instances of not quite seeing the monster responsible for the carnage. Regional police are caught up battling mountain wildfires, so it’s down to Beom-seok, his rookie deputy Sung-ae (Jung Ho-yeon, of “Squid Game” fame), his second cousin, the hotheaded hunter Sung-ki (Zo In-sung), and a disparate group of old-but-determined locals to protect the town from the alien beast’s rampage.

By the time we get to actually see the monster, we’re about an hour in to the film’s 160-minute runtime. About 20 minutes later, we also get a brief pause in the chaos. Catch your breath quick. It’s all about to kick off again. The alien didn’t arrive by itself.

“Hope” could very easily have been trash. It’s not. It’s trashy, but in the best way. The cast’s commitment — their exhaustion, confusion and desperation leap off the screen — coupled with Hong-jin’s stylized cinematography and kinetic story, and the neat way he reveals that the aliens aren’t simply mindless killers, but have strong emotions of their own, elevate it out of b-movie territory and into a hugely entertaining piece of cinema — a compelling mix of digitally enhanced set pieces and old-school analogue action. The (non-)ending is the only real bum note.

“Hope” doesn’t have great depth, but it is a frenetic, gripping film that doesn’t take itself too seriously.