The Host

The Host is a really good Korean creature feature. It adds in so much more than your everyday monster movie, and is ultimately a really strong film for it. It also seems to break from most of the creature feature conventions. You see the creature clearly, in full daylight, going on a rampage within the first fifteen minutes. The focus is on a small family, but the characters are interesting and the acting is good so you actually care about them. The Host is memorable and entertaining, and worth watching.

Lazy simpleton Gang-du works at a riverside food stall in Seoul with his elderly father. He’s an often absent-minded buffoon of sorts, prone to sleeping on the job and who only perks up and shows care and enthusiasm towards his schoolgirl daughter Hyun-seo. His sister is a competitive archer and his brother is an unemployed college graduate/alcoholic/political activist.

One day a creature comes out of the Han River and goes on a bloody rampage, killing dozens of people. Gang-du attempts to fight it off and flee with Hyun-seo, but in the panic and confusion she is taken by the monster as it retreats back into the river. Military forces immediately lock down the city, evacuate the citizens and close off the area while quarantining anybody who remotely came in contact with the creature due to their fears of it possibly spreading a deadly virus. Gang-du and his family are taken to a military hospital where they grieve, but in the middle of the night he receives a brief, panicked phone call from Hyun-seo, still alive and in the creature’s lair, Gang-du and his family must then work together to escape the quarantine, evade the military and rescue Hyun-seo before the creature kills her.

The quarantine aspect of the movie really gives it a different feeling. There are roadblocks, there are armed soldiers, there are doctors in containment suits, there are trucks driving along the river releasing decontaminating steam to ward off the possible virus. As such the riverside and sewers feel abandoned, which makes sense considering. It really feels like what a government/military reaction to the sudden appearance of a monster would be like. The film ventures into the labyrinthine sewers under Seoul (shot there for real), which are surprisingly atmospheric. They’re large, grey mazes of cold, angular architecture and are a pretty interesting locale for a horror movie.

The creature in this feature is an interesting one, a sort of mutant tadpole/frog thing. It’s not as large as many other monster movie monsters (it’s a little larger than a van), but it’s surprisingly agile and versatile, being amphibious and sporting a prehensile tail. It swallows people whole and then vomits out their bones in a grossly awesome bit of monster detail. It looks pretty great all things considered. While the CGI is a bit dated (the film was made back in 2006) the design is still really interesting and unique.

There’s an occasional streak of gallows humour thrown in to add some levity to situations that continue to get increasingly desperate and grim. It’s a pretty good mix all things considered, though as it continues to the end the humour largely vanishes. It’s occasionally a more serious and sombre monster movie than most, and the focus on a single family is surprisingly effective.

 

The acting is quite good, which is something that is usually lacking in monster movies. Monster movies usually fill the non-monster segments of the film with dull characters doing nothing interesting. The Host, more than anything, is about Gang-du’s family and focuses on them. And it really works; the family dynamic is interesting, and they have enough quirks to be interesting. Each family member also has their part to play. You actually end up caring for their plight. It works because they ~ cares a lot about his daughter – she’s his whole world. His desperation and determination, borne from an otherwise simple and lazy individual, really works well. Actor Song Kang-ho is great as Gang-du. He’s a mainstay in a lot of great Korean movies, also starring in ‘Sympathy for Mr Vengeance’, ‘The Good, The Bad, The Weird’ and ‘Thirst’, and he does good work here.
A big ongoing theme in the film is failure, particularly with Gang-du and his siblings. His sister is an excellent archer, but loses competitions as she hesitates. His brother is another sort of failure – an unemployed college graduate/alcoholic and political activist. His father feels guilty for his son’s usual laziness. As the film goes on, they step up and take charge, but sometimes mistakes are still made – that’s just life. Military and government incompetence is a big theme in the movie, with the various soldiers, government officials and scientists being ineffectual and uncaring. Gang-du and his family are constantly hindered by incompetent officials and uncaring doctors.

It’s a well-made film from a technical standpoint. It’s a good looking movie, shot well with a good colour scheme that really sells the atmosphere. Likewise the sound design is excellent, with the instrumental them being particularly noteworthy.

The Host is a good movie and well worth watching. I don’t really know how to elaborate on that.