When an American Army mortician’s unit illegally dumps chemicals
into the sink, which winds up in the River Han, a large, mutated monster appears
in the river one day in Seoul--it’s first seen hanging by its tail from
underneath the bridge, looking for all the world like a black oil slick
suspended in mid air. When the monster dives into the water, the onlookers on
the river bank assume it simply swam away--until it jumps up on land and starts
chasing them all down in a really tense, gripping scene that puts the last
twenty years of Godzilla movies to shame. During the melee, Gang-du, a slacker
who works for his father’s food stand by the riverside, sees the monster grab
his 13 year old daughter Hyun-seo.
At first
Hyun-seo’s family thinks she’s dead, eaten by the monster on the opposite side
of the river. But when the resourceful kid manages to call her father, using a
cell phone from another victim that she found in the monster’s sewer lair,
Gang-du and his extremely dysfunctional (but lovable) family--his father, his
sister and brother--all break out of the hospital in an effort to track her down
themselves. The reason the family’s in the hospital is because they’re under quarantine--in
addition to being a rampaging menace, the monster is also discovered to be a
carrier of an unknown virus when an off-duty American soldier who helped battle
it winds up getting deathly sick.
And so not only is The Host a fun monster mash,
but it also manages to offer some wry social commentary on the pandemic scares
that struck Asia in recent years. The movie careens from sci-fi monster thriller
to poignant drama to slapstick comedy in the blink of an eye, giving it an
uneven feel at times--as if the filmmakers couldn’t decide on what tone to adapt
for their story. Yet the monster is superbly done, with an ingenuous design that
suggests a mutated tadpole grown to hideous proportions, and it’s blended
seamlessly into its real world surroundings (thanks to The Orphanage, a San
Francisco-based special effects company founded by three former members of
George Lucas’ ILM).
The actors also do a great job in making their characters extremely sympathetic, specially Ah-sung Ko as
Hyun-seo and Kang-ho Song as Gang-du. And the film moves at such a relentless pace that
it's hard not to get involved in the proceedings, as well as cheer at the ending.
Make no mistake, this is no Toho-produced guy-in-a-rubber-suit-trashing-a-toy-town
kind of flick,
but a fresh, more realistic take on the giant monster movie. The DVD comes with deleted scenes, deleted news
clips, and an interview with director Bong-joon Ho. Over fifty years ago the
Japanese made an excellent monster movie filled with relevant social commentary
in the original Godzilla. Now, South Korea has made it’s monster masterpiece in
The Host.
--SF
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