It’s a mad statement to call THE HOST a rubbish film, a bleak export from the South Korean seas.


In fact, it’s not.


THE HOST, with all its rollicking enjoyment to its grave moments, is a superbly-made monster movie, filled with touches that are funny at times, apocalyptically horrific, and unexpectedly poignant. It’s difficult not to like this film because it works on many levels, generating a genre-bender that is rarely done by movies nowadays. First it’s pure terror; then it turns humorous, then back to frightfest and sways you into another curve that might touch your nerves and tearducts. You could say it’s a Korean film but it’s nevertheless a film that breaks the monotony of Hollywood bloatedness and gives your money some real worth. Gathering plaudits from Cannes and New York Film Festival, this proves to be the most successful export from foreign seas so far this year and now it sets record to be South Korea’s top-selling film of all time (TITANIC now had ostensibly sunk).


As aforementioned, THE HOST is an all-too many genres combined together to brew a weird but effective mix. The movie starts as a social commentary as a U.S. officer in a morgue demands that all “dirty” formaldehyde be emptied down into the drain, leading to Seoul’s Han River, then the creature feature show started as years later, a bizarre mutated monster surfaced from the waters terrifying the populace of the vicinity. The monster, as entitled, is a host to a deadly virus and was mutated from formalin, weirdly resembling a cross between a giant tadpole and a coelacanth with legs. And yes, it’s massive. Its how monster movies are supposed to be; gigantically intimidating species starts causing riot and mayhem. But at the very epicentre of the film is a story about a dysfunctional family with lost abilities and unfulfilled pledges in their lives; a neurotic father who struggles to remain sane as his daughter was abducted by the monster while all the rest believed that she died in the tragic event; an uncle who’s both proud and vain yet secretly disgraced by his own uselessness without any job to cling on to; an aunt who never took home the gold medal in archery and fails to take the bull’s-eye; a grandfather who struggles to keep his family together and discovers that not at all times guns are loaded for warfare; and a child who shows courage and strength in the midst of indelible horror of being held captive by the monster. THE HOST is like South Korea’s LITLLE MISS SUNSHINE, but more on the extravaganza of the thrill and mainly of characters with depth and reason. And no, this doesn’t offer cheap thrills unlike other cheap American creature films.


There are also geopolitical and mainly political undertones beneath its mighty currents as director Bong Joon-ho buzzes a commentary on this film, toxic wastes laid imperviously, government silencing down inhumane ways and means, and the U.S. government’s heavy influence on the South Korean territory. Aside from that he knows how to handle the complexity of his camera movements as every angle shots of THE HOST is filled with careful precision, catapulting cinematography into its highest levels. The editing was brilliant as well, with a pace that’s never dragging. His unpredictable knack for surfing from genre to genre never lets the film stays in its box and lets it breath with inventiveness. There might be abrupt tonal shifts but such moments leaves audiences breathless as for example in the funeral scene – I have never imagined such a funny moment staged in a funeral – then plunges us back into the terror in which the movie is roughly about. Hyun-Seo, the school girl who was abducted by the monster, remains the strength of the film as she manages pulling out astoundingly hair-raising scenes devoted to her escape but unfortunately fails. Of course, Bong must have known his suspenseful tricks as he may well have studied GODZILLA and pop culture.


And of course, the film’s surprisingly human and powerful emotional punch at its climax – dark, desperate need for the dysfunctional Park family to finish the failed rescue effort. We somehow know that there’s indeed something stirring beneath the waters of THE HOST.


Don’t dare misjudge the capability of this film. It’s a superior monster movie, almost on par with the great JAWS. Bong Joon-ho works like the early Spielberg brimmed with his tricks of delights. THE HOST succeeds because it never thought, not a single minute, to be intimidated of greatness.



RATING: A-