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.

Korean Movie Night: JSA Joint Security Area 공동경비구역 JSA (2000) Korean

Lee Young Ae, Lee Byung Hun, Song Kang Ho, Kim Tae Woo, Shin Ha Kyun

Movie rating: 9/10     Neck score: A

I knew going into this one, that it was going to be filled with tension and sadness.  How could a movie about the boarder between two countries, divided, and constantly on the brink of war not be?  It certainly had all of that.  It was also full of all the emotions, like every Korean movie I end up watching.  I really liked the build of this one, as it starts with the event that is being investigated, with gun shots and dead bodies, and then we slowly get flashes into the different sides of the story, until we get the full story, what really happened.  By this point we are fully invested, so it is all the more tragic and heartbreaking, and we're crying, or at least ready to at any moment.  It had a good way of catching the beauty of the little moments, so that the gravity of the big moments were all the more harsh.  This is something that's hard to find in most typical movies.  I love it when the little moments are important.

I loved how cleanly it portrayed both sides.  It didn't demonize or glorify one side over the other.  It didn't paint one bad the other good, but that the whole thing was a mess.  The higher ups on both sides were just as bad, demonstrating the stereotypes and prejudices, while the common soldier, the individual, each had a story and their own opinions.

Korean Movie Night: A Taxi Driver 택시 운전사 (2017) Korean

Song Kang Ho, Thomas Kretschmann, Yoo Hae Jin, Ryu Jun Yeol, Park Hyuk Kwon

Movie rating: 9/10     Neck score: B

I guess this wasn't really a movie night, because we went to see this at 11:15am.  But I'll count it anyway.  Omo, seeing it in a theater is just another experience.  It was us and a bunch of halabeoji and halmeoni, and we were definitely feeling outnumbered.  The halabeoji sitting next to Lizabreff was probably texting his friends that he was sitting next to three weird white girls.  We also had random people talking in Korean in the middle of the movie, probably louder than they thought.

It was so good!  It made us feel all the emotions, it did such a good job of taking us back to 1980, and seeing all the different sides of the issues.  I also love that they got a German actor who could actually act, in German and English, and it was just great.  We felt all the emotions.  From sweet to sickening, to outright tears (of course).  It's funny because we saw Battleship Island as well, which is much more action packed, but the brutal police/military violence of this one was some how more horrifying.  There was no discrimination in who they beat, it was awful.

With such a heavy topic as the Gwangju massacre, it was nice that they were able to add some sweet moments, and some comedy, bringing out the humanity and the love, which of course made the awful terror and brutal violence all the worse, as well as all the sacrifices of the people for their friends and colleagues that much more touching and tear jerking.

We got to see them all grow as well.  Each of the characters has a story.  Our taxi driver Kim Man Seob (Song Kang Ho), who is just a working man trying to support his daughter, whose seen a lot and doesn't really want to get involved.  He is such a tender hearted man who is trying to be tough and mercenary, who doesn't want to rock the boat to protect himself and his family.  He ends up taking a German reporter named Peter to Gwangju, which is blocked off by the military because of rioting.  Peter knows what to expect to a certain extent, and Man Seob to a different extent, because the government is falsifying reports about the riots, but he knows his people.  They end up getting help from a local taxi driver, reporter, and college student, who of course all have stories that make us love them as well.

So there is a lot of everything.  laughter, tears, military brutality, rioting, saving, and you just feel everything right there with them, because they did a really good job of giving a face to these people, so we know who they are, what they felt, and why they did what they did.  I cried a lot and laughed a lot, and it was so, so, so, good.  I am super happy that I got this chance to be in LA when it was in theaters, so I could watch it.  Absolutely no regrets, it was awesome.  I highly recommend it.