Korean Movie Night: The Host 괴물 (2006) Korean

Song Kang Ho, Byun Hee Bong, Park Hae Il, Bae Doona, Go Ah Sung

Movie rating: 7/10     Neck score: A

We watched this one because besides being famous, it was the week of Halloween and we wanted to watch a scary movie... this movie is not scary.  I would not count it as horror, more of just a monster movie- a baby on the scale of Gojira (Godzilla), but the same kind.  In fact, when I found out that it was based on a real life event, when a Korean mortician working for the U.S. military dumped a bunch of formaldehyde down the drain and substantially into the Han River.  This turns it, like Gojira , into an anti-American film, as it focuses more on the effects of American involvement and attitude.  It is a political statement, not a horror movie.  I would even say that the real monsters in the movie are not the actual monster, but the U.S. Military and how they handled the situation.  The fact that they spread a mass virus hysteria because one of their soldiers died fighting the monster, while off duty, and that they would willfully turn Korean citizens into lab rats to cover their tracks just reinforces the theory.  Then there is the obvious stab with the thinly veiled reference to Agent Orange, renamed Agent Yellow, as the bio weapon used to combat the creature.

The monster itself is just not scary because this movie is old and I was super underwhelmed at the CGI.  It was meant to look like a giant mutated salamander or some other kind of amphibian, and it actually made me giggle when it first came out and went on a rampage.  But this was 2006, so try not to judge it too harshly.  I feel like the CGI budget was used up on the scenes where the monster would swing on the bridges in the sewers to travel, and climb up the the walls down to the pit where it would spit out it's victims.  It had moments of coolness, but was still an early example of CGI monsters at best... or maybe worst.



The part that made the movie great was actually the actors.  Not the English speaking actors, they were as bad as normal.  On the horrible side really.  I'm talking about the family.  They were gold.  Obviously, because we have Song Kang Ho, the bumbling father who is always sleeping turned hero when his daughter is in trouble.  Byun Hee Bong as the grandpa, and he is always great.  I love Bae Doona as the archer aunt who keeps bringing home bronze metals because she hesitates too much.  She was bad-a.  My favorite might have been Park Hae Il, the uncle who was an unemployed college graduate who had wasted away his college career protesting, and now just complains and drinks all the time.  He was a hilarious complainer, and actually one of the smartest characters in the movie.  Put this dream team together and you have a family worth watching as they look for their daughter/granddaughter/niece who was taken away by the monster and who they hope is still alive.  So Ah Sung plays that daughter, and she is awesome.  She is the perfect combo of cute, mature, and smart.

So I would say that it is a great movie, but would be better if you go in with the right expectations.  Don't expect to be scared, but do expect the political commentary, as it hits it hard, from the portrayal of every American in the show, as well as the bias of the news, clearly influenced by the conservative politics that would be more welcome to the American influence and interference.  I went in expecting horror, but was instead horrified at the portrayal of the Americans in the film.  Not that I was offended, it was more like embarrassed at the stupidity of their actions.  They were all self-absorbed idiots with no compassion or care for the people of the country they were supposed to be "helping."  That kind of portrayal doesn't come from no where, and once I realized that the initial event, with the formaldehyde, was real, that put the rest of the film very much in perspective.  It is very similar to Gojira in the aspect of the monster being the result of American actions, whether it be the a-bomb, Agent Orange, or large quantities of formaldehyde not disposed of properly.  Both films are about the after effects of American actions that in turn devastate the host countries.