South Korea just keeps knocking out the hits and writer-director Bong Joon-ho’s monster genre entry, THE HOST, is only one the latest. This blockbuster killed its Hollywood competition locally in 2006, earning a massive $68 million in South Korea, while performing very well all over Asia ahead of a successful $2.2 million run in the U.S. It’s no wonder. The film presents a fresh, satirical twist on the age old monster movie genre where a highly dysfunctional family chooses to go head-to-head with a super-sized mutant lizard fish with a voracious appetite for Seoul residents in order to rescue the youngest member of the family freshly kidnapped by the creature.
THE HOST is not just another excuse for putting computer effects artists to work. This is a hugely entertaining comedic drama and sci-fi actioner rolled into one that defies genre conventions in the process. There has been a lot of talk in the media about comparisons to JAWS and other classic monster movies but I consider THE HOST to be more in line with the likes of Norman Jewison’s social satire THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING (1966) and Jiang Wen’s war satire DEVILS ON THE DOORSTEP (2000). (In his audio commentary for the U.S. DVD release, Dong admits the latter provided at least some direct visual inspiration.) Dong is less focused in picking his targets but U.S. foreign policy, the South Korean government and ordinary Korean citizens all take a mild beating amid the chaos of a creature rampaging along the banks of the Han River. On top of that, Dong rarely goes for any real monster chills. I wouldn’t classify the movie as even remotely horrific, even though it does tap into very familiar monster movie convention; perhaps most notably from the 1980 creature feature ALLIGATOR.
The opening to the film is inspired by a real-life incident in 2000 when a U.S. Army base in Seoul was caught dumping 80 liters of Formaldehyde into the Han River, a broad waterway that runs through the center of the city. Although no mutated monster ever emerged from the waters, the U.S. military did find itself suffering a public relations disaster that only intensified resentment already brewing among locals over the military’s continued presence there.
In the film, six years pass after the incident and a mutated monster does emerge from the river to rampage through a park along the banks. One of its victims is Park Hyun-seo, played marvelously by newcomer Ko A-sung. She’s a teenage girl snatched away alive by the creature’s tail and carried away to its lair underneath one of many bridges that cross the river.
Believing the girl to have died with all the other victims, Hyun-seo’s estranged family reunites to morn her passing before her dimwitted father, Gang-du (Song Kang-ho), is forcibly quarantined following a report that the creature is “host” to a potentially lethal virus. When the distraught girl makes a cell phone call to Gang-du from the creature’s dank lair where she is trapped, he breaks out of quarantine and begins a search for Hyun-seo with the aid of his family. They consist of Gang-du’s aged father (Byun Hee-bong) who runs a small concession stand, his recently unemployed brother (Park Hae-il), and his sister (Doo-na) who is a competitive archer.
Beautifully shot and edited like many movies coming out of South Korea these days, THE HOST doesn’t bother teasing the viewer with brief glimpses of the beast. Instead, it emerges in broad daylight and puts its full destructive abilities on display for all to see. This is an important element because it allows Bong to redirect our attention to the family early on. It is their slightly crazed attempt to find Hyun-seo despite being pursued by authorities and risking their lives against the monster that provides us with the real substance of the movie. In the process, the family members undergo a gradual transformation where they overcome their individual faults and come together in ways they never were willing to outside of this crisis.
Bong wisely keeps the focus on this family but surrounds them with all the public spectacle one could imagine in a situation like this. Armed units in hazard suits sweep the riverbanks. The media blitz is in full swing praying on the public’s fear over a virus scare. The military introduces a controversial “agent yellow” gas to combat the threat. This results in student protests from engaged environmental groups. The monster itself becomes a sideshow to the virus it carries. The creature continues its feeding frenzy but we rarely see it in action hereafter because the audience perspective remains with the Park family.
The level of violence in the movie is somewhat muted by Bong’s approach to the action. Unlike some filmmakers who relish in onscreen destruction, Bong only uses it to forward his story. Opening and closing monster action sequences are as exciting and sensational as any equivalent Hollywood scenes, but the real conflict and tension comes from small things in between like Hyun-seo’s struggle to escape the monster’s lair and Gang-du’s semi-lucid frustration and fear at being treated like a lunatic while his daughter’s life is in jeopardy. There is an unusual subplot involving Gang-du’s mental state and a medical fix that looks a lot like a lobotomy.
Production standards for THE HOST are first-rate in every respect, from world-class creature effects made from an international collaboration of five different effects companies to Kim Hyung-goo’s excellent score that gives us a memorable theme and music in general that reinforces the film’s emphasis on quirky and flawed elements of humanity.
What I like most about THE HOST is the wry strain of humor that runs through the entire film. I can definitely see that some viewers won’t get it and that’s not my way of looking down on anyone. Rather, it is a suggestion that Bong’s brand of humor simply may not jive with everyone. He doesn’t go for obvious gags and is more than willing to turn some of the most potentially disturbing scenes into something intentionally amusing. Perhaps the best and most misunderstood example is when the Park family, reunited for the first time at Hyeo-seo’s premature funeral, begins writhing on the ground in an absurdly over-the-top display of mourning. My favorite comic scene has a Caucasian doctor, played by Paul Lazar (SILENCE OF THE LAMBS), talking to a colleague about the virus in front of Gang-du until he realizes that Gang-du understands what he’s saying. There is an outtake on Magnolia’s DVD release that extends this scene with an even funnier reaction from Lazar.
Bong knows where to draw the line on the comedy and balances it tightly with bits of real drama and suspense. It is one of the great strengths of this film that it can convincingly run its characters through multiple emotional states, sometimes simultaneously. It’s something few, if any Hollywood filmmakers can pull off without resorting to extremes or stereotypes. Steven Spielberg’s WAR OF THE WORLDS may be one of the most recent comparable examples and Tom Cruise as alien fighter doesn’t come close to matching Song Kang-ho as lizard fish fighter.
THE HOST may be a little too smart for its genre britches at times instead of simply letting the viewer indulge in gratuitous monster mayhem but I’m not complaining. We’ve had more than enough brainless shockers and overstuffed event flicks filled with nothing but squirming insects, gory carnage or uninspired and reimagined monster icons. Bong Joon-ho has managed to create something oddly unique, dramatically engaging and consistently enjoyable on multiple levels while staying within genre convention. The fact that he does so without relying solely on the film’s mutated fish beast is what makes this one of the coolest monster flicks to come along in years.
by Mark Pollard
