Movie Review - The Host
Acclaimed South Korean director Joon-ho Bong is behind Gwoemul, the original title of The Host, South Korea’s most successful film of all time. A rather badass partnership between Weta Workshop (original creature models) and The Orphanage (effects and animation) brings the titular beastie to life with a unique flair, even when it doesn’t blend into the live action all that well. The Host begins with a tinge of comedy, much in the manner of Shaun of the Dead. In that same vein, The Host eventually lets drama and horror push the humor to the backseat to focus on the film’s characters- and, of course, the star of the entire show.
The movie opens with an American scientist obsessed with cleanliness, upset that all the jars of embalming fluid in his lab have a layer of dust on them. He instructs his assistant to dump them all down the drain, even though they go right into the Han River. The movie takes 10 minutes to introduce the main characters of the story, who run a small market on the riverside: the father, Hee-bong, and his lazy son Park Gang-du with his daughter Hyun-seo. The son also has a brother and sister who are introduced shortly thereafter. A quiet day on the riverside is interrupted when the creature leaps out of the river and attacks the area, taking Hyun-seo with it.
As the government tries to gain control of the situation and contain any virus that the monster may have spread, Gang-du receives a call from his daughter, crying for help. Escaping the hospital and banding together, the family sets out to find Hyun-seo, trying to avoid the government lockdown of the Han River. From this point, the movies switches between the Park family trying to find Hyun-seo, and Hyun-seo as she is held captive in the sewers with other kidnapped people that the monster eats as it needs.
The most interesting thing about The Host is how it bends the rules of your standard monster film. Most monster movies try to show the creature as little as possible to build fear, but The Host shows its monster early on, and usually in full view. It builds tension by the monster’s bizarre movements and generally unpleasant appearance. The film also has a large amount of satirical content and political commentary, an amount of depth that most monster movies don’t even bother striving for, from the American dumping embalming fluid into the river (based on an actual controversial event) to the US intervention in the situation with the mysterious Agent Yellow (an obvious reference to Agent Orange). The occasional specks of awkward comedy mixed in lighten otherwise tense moments, such as the scene where the family mourns Hyu-seo’s supposed death.
The Host succeeds on nearly every level. While the special effects aren’t always topnotch, they are quite impressive considering the film’s budget, which was a fraction of your standard Hollywood monster movie. As the family searches for Hyun-seo, they must all confront their personal problems and shortcomings, and overcome them to defeat the monster. Solid character development and acting from the cast draw attention from the spectacle that is the monster, which ends up acting as a catalyst for change in the family rather than a straightforward antagonist. While the director does not hesitate to show the monster, he doesn’t do it at every possible opportunity, which makes its appearances all the more gripping as you are torn from the characters’ lives and grievances.
All in all, The Host is an entertaining, well-made monster movie that doesn’t fail to deliver. A sequel is planned for 2008, with a different director (Joon-ho Bong will be working with Michel Gondry and Leos Carax on Tôkyô, a triptych similar to New York Stories), and there are rumors of a U.S. remake similar to The Ring or The Grudge.
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