261 Days of Horror, Day 19: The Host
Jan. 25th, 2007 06:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yendiThe Host. 2006. Directed by Joon-ho Bong. Written by Bong and Chul-hyun Baek. Distributed by Showbox.
(Note: That url goes to the official Korean site, as I don't think there's a US one yet)
I caught The Host last night as a part of the opening night of the Korean Film Festival at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. As this is a rare review of a movie that won't see wide US release for a few months, I won't be quite as spoilery as I usually am. But there's still plenty to talk about. This is a film that manages to transcend (or, more accurately, engulf) genre, mixing comedy, horror, social/politcal satire, and a touching family story into a stupendous movie that translates surprisingly well.
(Note: Apologies if I mess up any spellings; I'm treating the IMDB listings as correct, but I'm sure that some of them aren't.)
The movie starts with a surprising funny scene in English. Back in 2000, a wacky American scientist in Korea (played by Scott "Sam Braun" WIlson), on a rant about the dusty state of his lab, decides that all of the old formaldehyde needs to be dumped, and has his Korean assistant do it, even as the latter protests that the chemicals would go straight into the Han River. We then cut to the assistant dumping formaldehyde into the sink. He's up to at least 200 bottles, and he's not even halfway done. I think this might create something a little more scary than Blinky the Three-Eyed Fish.
We get a few scenes of the river over the years -- some fisherman see a very small mutant amphibian that swims away, and a businessman, as he's about to kill himself, sees something big in the river. Then we take a short break as we meet our heroes, the Park family.
Gang-du is a ne'er-do-well, working at his father's foodstand and often as not falling asleep on the job. His thirteen-year-old daughter, Hyun-seo, loves her dad, but gripes about being poor. Nam-ju, Gang-du's sister, is a talented archer who always loses in major competitions because she's too slow (and, as of the opening scene, she's off competing and losing in one while the others watch her on TV). Nam-Il, the youngest of the three siblings, is a college graduate (and former revolutionary) who has remained unemployed since graduating, and who embarrasses his niece by showing up drunk to her school's parents day. Patriarch Heui-bong does his best to keep the family together, or at least to encourage them to work.
While Huei-bong and his granddaughter get absorbed in watching yet another of Nam-ju's competitions on TV, Gang-du wanders down to the shore of the river with other folks, all of whom have noticed something strange dangling under the bridge. Soon, the creature drops into the water and swims to the shore, where folks start throwing it beer cans and food, which it gobbles up from underneath the murky waters (folks assume it's a dolphin, the goat of the sea). Eventually, it swims away, and everyone starts to go their separate ways, when, unexpectedly (especially to the characters in the movie), it attacks!
The only thing harder than trying to describe humorous scenes (of which there have already been plenty by this time in the movie) is a major action scene. Suffice to say, the monster's first major attack is a doozy. We get ten minutes of action as the creature, a large amphibian with a prehensile tail and some nasty teeth, makes its way through the crowd of picnickers. People are eaten, trampled, crushed, and even flicked into the river, and attacks on the monster seem to do minimal amounts of damage.
Eventually, Hyun-seo, oblivious to the stuff going on outside, wanders out of the food truck, only to find herself right in the middle of the riot. Her dad grabs her, and they continue to run until they trip. Gang-du reaches out and grabs his daughter's hand and continues to run. After another thirty feet or so, he realizes that he grabbed the wrong girl, and that his daughter has been left behind. As he watches in horror, the beast grabs Hyun-seo and carries her off into the river. Across the river, we see the beast devour the girl and dive back into the water, where it vanishes.
Korea soon descends into a state of panic. Rumors from the American army base indicate that the creature may also spread a virus, and the government focuses its efforts on disinfecting the citizens (and the city streets) with an unnamed spray. Meanwhile, as the family rests in the hospital/quarantine center, a static-filled phone call to his cell phone convinces Gang-du that his daughter is still alive and somewhere in the sewers. The family breaks out of the center, and their hunt for Hyun-seo (along with her attempts to survive being trapped in the beast's layer), take us through the rest of the movie. Along the way, we meet another family (a small homeless boy and his older brother), see the monster grab more victims, watch as the US military intervenes to help with the situation, and see a final, horrific showdown with the monster.
The Host is an unbelievably fun (and funny) movie. It's also one that simply can't be compared to anything else out there. The closest analog that comes to mind is Miike's The Happiness of the Katakuris, in that there are broad comedy and genre elements mixed into a movie about a family rediscovering itself. But The Host is not only a more effective movie, with a layer of poignancy that Miike never achieves. Director Joon-ho Bong turns what could have been a typical horror/comedy (with the emphasis most definitely on the comedy) into an surprisingly powerful tale of family love and obligations. That never stops the movie from being comedic, but there's a willingness to let the characters actually show emotions and suffer loss that's often missing in Hollywood films (and since this movie is the South Korean version of a summer blockbuster, it should definitely be compared to mainstream Hollywood, not art-house indie flicks).
Like Japanese films before it (The H-Man and Godzilla, both spring immediately to mind), American actions overseas (in this case, a real-life incident involving formaldehyde dumping) inspire the initial plot, and there's certainly a certain amount of political commentary when we see the American intervention (featuring Agent Yellow!). But the South Korean government is taken to task just as much, making ludicrously misguided efforts to catch the monster by sending two-person teams onto the streets, and spending too much time randomly disinfecting people to ever really do anything about the real threat. The political themes are definitely secondary to the family themes here.
The cast does a great job with their roles, and the subtitles (assuming this is the print that'll make it around the country) never turn to gibberish. Byung-woo Lee's score is top-notch, moving along the pacing and conveying the sense of danger balanced with a sense of whimsey and fun (the official site plays some of the music automatically). The f/x, by John Cox and The Orphanage*, are a nice mix of old-school animatronic stuff tweaked with cgi.
I can't recommend The Host highly enough. It's the highest-grossing film in South Korean history, and it deserves to be one of the highest grossing foreign films in US history.
*I was a bit surprised that they uses a US house for the f/x as well, but I don't know enough about the South Korean movie scene to know what sort of shops they have there.
(Note: That url goes to the official Korean site, as I don't think there's a US one yet)
I caught The Host last night as a part of the opening night of the Korean Film Festival at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. As this is a rare review of a movie that won't see wide US release for a few months, I won't be quite as spoilery as I usually am. But there's still plenty to talk about. This is a film that manages to transcend (or, more accurately, engulf) genre, mixing comedy, horror, social/politcal satire, and a touching family story into a stupendous movie that translates surprisingly well.
(Note: Apologies if I mess up any spellings; I'm treating the IMDB listings as correct, but I'm sure that some of them aren't.)
The movie starts with a surprising funny scene in English. Back in 2000, a wacky American scientist in Korea (played by Scott "Sam Braun" WIlson), on a rant about the dusty state of his lab, decides that all of the old formaldehyde needs to be dumped, and has his Korean assistant do it, even as the latter protests that the chemicals would go straight into the Han River. We then cut to the assistant dumping formaldehyde into the sink. He's up to at least 200 bottles, and he's not even halfway done. I think this might create something a little more scary than Blinky the Three-Eyed Fish.
We get a few scenes of the river over the years -- some fisherman see a very small mutant amphibian that swims away, and a businessman, as he's about to kill himself, sees something big in the river. Then we take a short break as we meet our heroes, the Park family.
Gang-du is a ne'er-do-well, working at his father's foodstand and often as not falling asleep on the job. His thirteen-year-old daughter, Hyun-seo, loves her dad, but gripes about being poor. Nam-ju, Gang-du's sister, is a talented archer who always loses in major competitions because she's too slow (and, as of the opening scene, she's off competing and losing in one while the others watch her on TV). Nam-Il, the youngest of the three siblings, is a college graduate (and former revolutionary) who has remained unemployed since graduating, and who embarrasses his niece by showing up drunk to her school's parents day. Patriarch Heui-bong does his best to keep the family together, or at least to encourage them to work.
While Huei-bong and his granddaughter get absorbed in watching yet another of Nam-ju's competitions on TV, Gang-du wanders down to the shore of the river with other folks, all of whom have noticed something strange dangling under the bridge. Soon, the creature drops into the water and swims to the shore, where folks start throwing it beer cans and food, which it gobbles up from underneath the murky waters (folks assume it's a dolphin, the goat of the sea). Eventually, it swims away, and everyone starts to go their separate ways, when, unexpectedly (especially to the characters in the movie), it attacks!
The only thing harder than trying to describe humorous scenes (of which there have already been plenty by this time in the movie) is a major action scene. Suffice to say, the monster's first major attack is a doozy. We get ten minutes of action as the creature, a large amphibian with a prehensile tail and some nasty teeth, makes its way through the crowd of picnickers. People are eaten, trampled, crushed, and even flicked into the river, and attacks on the monster seem to do minimal amounts of damage.
Eventually, Hyun-seo, oblivious to the stuff going on outside, wanders out of the food truck, only to find herself right in the middle of the riot. Her dad grabs her, and they continue to run until they trip. Gang-du reaches out and grabs his daughter's hand and continues to run. After another thirty feet or so, he realizes that he grabbed the wrong girl, and that his daughter has been left behind. As he watches in horror, the beast grabs Hyun-seo and carries her off into the river. Across the river, we see the beast devour the girl and dive back into the water, where it vanishes.
Korea soon descends into a state of panic. Rumors from the American army base indicate that the creature may also spread a virus, and the government focuses its efforts on disinfecting the citizens (and the city streets) with an unnamed spray. Meanwhile, as the family rests in the hospital/quarantine center, a static-filled phone call to his cell phone convinces Gang-du that his daughter is still alive and somewhere in the sewers. The family breaks out of the center, and their hunt for Hyun-seo (along with her attempts to survive being trapped in the beast's layer), take us through the rest of the movie. Along the way, we meet another family (a small homeless boy and his older brother), see the monster grab more victims, watch as the US military intervenes to help with the situation, and see a final, horrific showdown with the monster.
The Host is an unbelievably fun (and funny) movie. It's also one that simply can't be compared to anything else out there. The closest analog that comes to mind is Miike's The Happiness of the Katakuris, in that there are broad comedy and genre elements mixed into a movie about a family rediscovering itself. But The Host is not only a more effective movie, with a layer of poignancy that Miike never achieves. Director Joon-ho Bong turns what could have been a typical horror/comedy (with the emphasis most definitely on the comedy) into an surprisingly powerful tale of family love and obligations. That never stops the movie from being comedic, but there's a willingness to let the characters actually show emotions and suffer loss that's often missing in Hollywood films (and since this movie is the South Korean version of a summer blockbuster, it should definitely be compared to mainstream Hollywood, not art-house indie flicks).
Like Japanese films before it (The H-Man and Godzilla, both spring immediately to mind), American actions overseas (in this case, a real-life incident involving formaldehyde dumping) inspire the initial plot, and there's certainly a certain amount of political commentary when we see the American intervention (featuring Agent Yellow!). But the South Korean government is taken to task just as much, making ludicrously misguided efforts to catch the monster by sending two-person teams onto the streets, and spending too much time randomly disinfecting people to ever really do anything about the real threat. The political themes are definitely secondary to the family themes here.
The cast does a great job with their roles, and the subtitles (assuming this is the print that'll make it around the country) never turn to gibberish. Byung-woo Lee's score is top-notch, moving along the pacing and conveying the sense of danger balanced with a sense of whimsey and fun (the official site plays some of the music automatically). The f/x, by John Cox and The Orphanage*, are a nice mix of old-school animatronic stuff tweaked with cgi.
I can't recommend The Host highly enough. It's the highest-grossing film in South Korean history, and it deserves to be one of the highest grossing foreign films in US history.
*I was a bit surprised that they uses a US house for the f/x as well, but I don't know enough about the South Korean movie scene to know what sort of shops they have there.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-26 01:18 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-26 03:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-26 04:04 am (UTC)Out of curiosity, about how long is each review taking to write?
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-26 03:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-02 09:28 pm (UTC)Plus even if you just look at recent South Korean films, things like Lady Vengance and, argh, what was the version of Les Liaisons Dangereuses called, are better and often more horrific.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-03 01:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-10-30 06:59 pm (UTC)