The Host (2006)Some of history's worst monstrosities are born from three simple words: Just. Following. Orders. The Host (2006) is a Korean monster movie about an amphibious creature born from chemical pollution--specifically the emptying of hundreds of bottles of formaldehyde by a Korean lab assistant upon the orders of an American military doctor into the Han River. Over six years, the pollution causes a mutation in at least one river dwelling critter, turning it into a massive, tadpole-like man eater with a prehensile tale. And one summer day, the creature leaps forth from the river and rampages along the riverside of Seoul.
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The primary narrative arc of The Host deals with the eclectic Park family. There is Gang-du (Song Kang-ho), who despite being a single father is a slacker with dyed blonde hair and a predilection for something resembling narcolepsy. His father is Hee-bong (Byun Hee-bong), who tolerates his eccentric son to a point by giving him an effortless job at his convenience stand by the river. Hee-bong has two other children: Nam-joo (Bae Doona), an Olympic medalist in archery who missed her shot at the gold medal by hesitating at the last minute, and Nam-il (Park Hae-il), a frustrated and unemployed college graduate. Gang-du's daughter is Hyun-seo (Go Ah-sung), a middle school girl who is annoyed with her father's laziness and apparent stupidity. The problems of the Park family are fairly pedestrian for any kind of movie, and they are predictably tossed into a tumult after the attack by the river monster. The Host borrows from other noteworthy monster movies like it, including Jaws and Godzilla, and perhaps inspired other monster movies like Cloverfield. Consider the first scenes with the Park family by the riverside; it isn't that far removed from a day on the beaches of Amity Island...until the creature leaps forth from the water. Although the computer effects in The Host have not aged well, the first glance of the creature dangling by its tail from underneath a bridge still adds a mysterious quality to it. The tourists at the beach see the general shape of the creature beneath the water's surface, and so does the movie's audience, leaving everyone to wonder what it is that they actually saw. Director Bong Joon-ho achieves a similar effect in one of the introductory scenes with a man leaping to his suicide from a bridge, commenting on the shape beneath the waves. But while Spielberg kept the shark's appearance in Jaws a mystery for most of his film, Bong Joon-ho trades tension for terror as the rampaging beast soon smashes and eats its way through the hapless masses. In a surprising turn, Gang-du--who perhaps antagonized the creature by throwing a can of beer at it in the water--goes out of his way to try to save some people trapped in a trailer along with a visiting American sergeant named Donald White (David Joseph Anselmo), and then also tries to save Donald when his comrade-in-arms is attacked by the beast. But Gang-du, like everyone else, is really ill-suited to fight something so foreign and monstrous by himself, and concedes to try to save his family as it continues its rampage instead. But in a crucial moment, Gang-du loses his grip on the hand of his daughter, who is whisked beneath the waves by the monster and presumed dead. But not long after, Gang-du receives a phone call from Hyun-seo after he and his family have been taken into quarantine by the military due to reports of a viral infection originating from the creature, confirming that she is still alive.
The Host is unmistakably negative toward American involvement in South Korea as evidenced from the start by the blatantly ignorant order that the American military pathologist (Scott Wilson) gives to dump the formaldehyde simply because the bottles are dusty. This is a story ripped from the headlines which inspired Bong Joon-ho's movie, but it should be noted that it is still the Korean assistant (Brian Lee) who dumps it anyway. In this way, the film adds another dimension to its cynical outlook by making it more than just an attack on America, but really a commentary about a nation that allows others to come in and tell them how to live their lives regardless of their own welfare. In fact, it seems that the more that the military gets involved in quarantining the monster and its citizens exposed to it, the worse it makes everyone else's lives. This is best exemplified when the survivors of the attack are grieving and a man in a yellow hazmat suit (Kim Roi-ha) stumbles in and fails to offer any sympathy before essentially arresting everyone on the basis that they could be "contaminated". Because Gang-du confesses that some of the monster's blood hit his face, he and the Parks are grabbed up and taken to a military hospital which they are forced to break out of after receiving Hyun-seo's call, relying on Hee-bong's spurious black market connections to make good on their exit. The police are tone deaf to the needs of the Parks when Gang-du tells them about the call that he got, and the family is essentially made into fugitives with wanted posters stuck around town...there is even a reward for their apprehension. Panic spreads about the potential danger in a contagion that has fever like symptoms, and everyone in town is bedecked in face masks. In one scene, someone waiting for the bus removes his mask to spit out some phlegm into the puddle, which the bus splashes over the others waiting nervously nearby, and they all freak out. There is something prescient about the reactions of these people in The Host in a post-COVID world, and despite how outrageous the movie may depict people's behavior when under pressure about an invisible threat in the air--real or otherwise--it is eerily on the nose today. Similarly, the media plays an ubiquitous background role in The Host, with periodic news reports about American reactions to the handling of the quarantine by the United States, along with accusations of "misinformation", which has all of the tabloid elements of what passes for "news" these days. (The more things change, the more they stay the same.) Ultimately, the monster in The Host is a metaphor for what follows when people fall victim to this kind of blind subservience. It itself is a foreign element that destroys society as we know it and demands that everyone else conform to it as it rampages and struts around. This makes the climactic fight with the beast at the end of The Host symbolic as the Park family stands up against this malicious incursion to defend their land and way of life against this foreign threat.
Recommended for: Fans of a monster movie with a political bent, constantly mixing mirth and melodrama. The Host may not be an original concept, but it represents a noteworthy example of South Korean cinema and a breakthrough film for rising filmmaker, Bong Joon-ho.
The Host is unmistakably negative toward American involvement in South Korea as evidenced from the start by the blatantly ignorant order that the American military pathologist (Scott Wilson) gives to dump the formaldehyde simply because the bottles are dusty. This is a story ripped from the headlines which inspired Bong Joon-ho's movie, but it should be noted that it is still the Korean assistant (Brian Lee) who dumps it anyway. In this way, the film adds another dimension to its cynical outlook by making it more than just an attack on America, but really a commentary about a nation that allows others to come in and tell them how to live their lives regardless of their own welfare. In fact, it seems that the more that the military gets involved in quarantining the monster and its citizens exposed to it, the worse it makes everyone else's lives. This is best exemplified when the survivors of the attack are grieving and a man in a yellow hazmat suit (Kim Roi-ha) stumbles in and fails to offer any sympathy before essentially arresting everyone on the basis that they could be "contaminated". Because Gang-du confesses that some of the monster's blood hit his face, he and the Parks are grabbed up and taken to a military hospital which they are forced to break out of after receiving Hyun-seo's call, relying on Hee-bong's spurious black market connections to make good on their exit. The police are tone deaf to the needs of the Parks when Gang-du tells them about the call that he got, and the family is essentially made into fugitives with wanted posters stuck around town...there is even a reward for their apprehension. Panic spreads about the potential danger in a contagion that has fever like symptoms, and everyone in town is bedecked in face masks. In one scene, someone waiting for the bus removes his mask to spit out some phlegm into the puddle, which the bus splashes over the others waiting nervously nearby, and they all freak out. There is something prescient about the reactions of these people in The Host in a post-COVID world, and despite how outrageous the movie may depict people's behavior when under pressure about an invisible threat in the air--real or otherwise--it is eerily on the nose today. Similarly, the media plays an ubiquitous background role in The Host, with periodic news reports about American reactions to the handling of the quarantine by the United States, along with accusations of "misinformation", which has all of the tabloid elements of what passes for "news" these days. (The more things change, the more they stay the same.) Ultimately, the monster in The Host is a metaphor for what follows when people fall victim to this kind of blind subservience. It itself is a foreign element that destroys society as we know it and demands that everyone else conform to it as it rampages and struts around. This makes the climactic fight with the beast at the end of The Host symbolic as the Park family stands up against this malicious incursion to defend their land and way of life against this foreign threat.
Recommended for: Fans of a monster movie with a political bent, constantly mixing mirth and melodrama. The Host may not be an original concept, but it represents a noteworthy example of South Korean cinema and a breakthrough film for rising filmmaker, Bong Joon-ho.