The Host

I had a chance to see this at Fantastic Fest this year, but, as always happens at festivals, I missed it.

Luckily, a buddy of mine got passes to the sneak preview, so I still see it before you!

Ok. I’ll stop being all geekier than thou.

When a Korean scientist is instructed by an American military general to dump gallons of fermaldyhyde almost directly into the Han River just because the bottles are dusty, you kind of get the feeling that the Americans WANT something to go wrong.

When a giant fish monster jumps out of the river six years later, you KNOW that they wanted something to go wrong.

At the end of the first attack, little Park Hyun-seo (Ko Ah-sung) is taken away by the monster for a midnight snack. No, this is no King Kong where he falls in love with a girl. This is a monster who is only interested in eating. He’s got a few folks lined up for the snacking, but only Hyun-seo survived the ride back to the lair.

Meanwhile, her family is trying to break free of the government imposed quarentine. Hyun-seo called her dad (Song Kang-ho) from the sewer, but none of the doctors or soldiers believe that she’s alive. When the family finally does break out, it’s a long quest to find their little girl.

This movie has basically what anyone would want from a monster movie: violence, stupid military men, destruction, social commentary… It even has something that most monster movies don’t have: a personal story. I genuinely liked all of the characters in the movie and wanted them to survive. I think it was the first time that I didn’t want the monster to win!

The subtext may piss off some of the more jingoistic of us out here, but fuck ‘em. We really DID dump formaldeyhyde into the Han River back in 2001, so it’s not like the Koreans have any reason to be in love with us. But director/writer Bong Joon-ho doesn’t think that Korea is completely blameless. He shows their bueracracy taking its toll, too. There’s plenty of misinformation to go around.

He also never loses his sense of humor. Yes, there area lot of serious themes going on here (just like in the original cut of Godzilla), but there’s a lot of fun along the way. (Watch for the cross-eyed military doctor towards the end. I couldn’t look at him for too long.)

Four words for you: GO SEE THIS MOVIE!!!! I really want it to make a little bit of money over here. And, if the preview audience last night was any indication, I don’t think people are going to turn up in droves. So it’s up to us, the few genre fans out here, to get the word out and tell people that it’s not just a movie about a monster with a vagina mouth.