The Host
(aka, Gwoemul)
2006
119 minutes
Magnolia Home Entertainment
RCast • Kang-ho Song, Hie-bong Byeon, Hae-il Park, Ah-sung Ko, Du-na Bae
Writers • Chul-hyun Baek, Joon-ho Bong
Director • Joon-ho Bong
Today is Day Eighteen of VE's CreepFest!
I DON’T KNOW IF the Korean title of The Host translates to something other than its American title. Because the significance of the title is never actually stated, which puts a little twist on this very entertaining movie, which combines sci-fi horror, comedy and drama: Does the title refer to the fast-moving, lizard-like, very hungry beast that appears in the Han River? Does it refer to its unlikely hero, Gung-du (Kang-ho Song), a sluggish layabout who’s believed to be infected with a virus the beast may carry? Or is the title “character” Korea itself, controlled by the invasive United States?
There’s certainly a case to be made for any of these options. But since the beast is created when an American doctor (Scott Wilson, still best known from In Cold Blood) orders a Korean colleague (Brian Lee) to dispose of a raft of chemicals down the lab’s drain, and since U.S. forces in Korea control the effort to stop the beast, it’s hard not to see the movie’s critique of Korean-American relations as an important undercurrent in its plot. MORE AFTER THE JUMP
The chemical dumping soon results in the swimming, running and leaping beast that wreaks havoc on a Seoul waterfront park, as it tramples, swallows and grabs locals and tourists (the movie’s funniest jibes at America comes when one of its first victims is an American Alpha-male tourist who tries to save the day). Among the victims is also Hyun-seo (Ah-sung Ko), Gung-du’s pre-teen daughter.
Her death brings her dysfunctional family together in remarkable ways. Their over-the-top grieving is played for laughs, as are the troubles of Gung-du’s siblings Nam-Joo (Du-na Bae), an archer who just blew a big tournament, and Nam-il (Hae-il Park), a former student radical who’s now unemployed and often drunk. But The Host is able to blend a variety of tones after Hyun-seo, whom the beast has dumped in the elaborate Seoul sewer system with his other victims, phones to tell him she’s survived and needs to be rescued. Plotting to escape from the authorities that have quarantined them, the siblings and their hard-working dad (Hie-bong Byeon) plot to escape and then to find Hyun-seo.
There is Shaun of the Dead-like genre comedy here, but The Host turns surprisingly dramatic and even touching in its later stages. Director and co-writer Joon-ho Bong turns out to be as agile and impressive as the mutant superbeast that drives his movie. • PAUL SHERMAN
Comments