THE HOST (Original title Guimul or Gwoemul, or “Creature”) is a Horror flick by South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-Ho (Barking Dogs Never Bite, Memories of Murder) that takes the monster movie genre and thrashes it with a long, green tentacle into something refreshing, emotionally engaging, funny, and undeniably scary in moments.

In the Asian Film Awards (a presentation of the Hong Kong International Film Festival Society), the film won 4 out of 10 awards, including Best Film, Best Actor (Kang-ho Song plays Kang-Du), Best Visual Effects and Best Cinematography (Kim Yung-goo ).

In Nezua’s eyes, The Host wins 4 1/2 stars (first introduced as Nezua’s Hot Chile Pepper Awards!) out of a possible 5. Half a star lost to a few holes in the story that I am personally willing to overlook, given the whole tamale, which was a taste treat of high quality.

PLOT: An American Army doctor at a US base morgue in South Korea orders a Korean doctor to dump a huge amount of toxic chemical (formaldehyde) down a sink drain. The Korean doctor protests, as this will directly pollute the Han River. The American doctor arrogantly tells the conscientious dissenter that it’s a “broad” river, so he ought to think “broad-mindedly.” (This is not some anti-American stance pulled out of thin air, but based on an actual event.) The toxic agent eventually causes mutations in the river’s denizens and a beast emerges from the dark waters of the Han to terrorize the populace.

The government quarantines the city claiming a new and deadly contagion (virus) is being spread by the beast (though the veracity of this claim is dubious), our heroine gets swallowed by THE HOST, and thus begins our newest monster movie—one that follows a traditional genesis, perhaps, but that is not predictable by any means.

Gang-du (Song Kang-ho) is his son, a slow, absent-minded but good-hearted man who is always falling asleep and who, we learn, may be this way due to malnutrition as a child. You can keep track of him most of the time by his hair which is partly bleached blonde. It’s a great touch that makes him feel somewhat adolescent or not-quite-serious. Which makes sense, because he begins his arc as a child in a man’s body, essentially. We learn that Gang-du was left pretty much on his own growing up, for Hee-bong (the father) was not there. This is not set up early in any maudlin or dramatic way, and we only learn it later in the film. The revealing of this information feels very organic to the storyline.

Gang-du’s siblings razz him pretty good, for he is the family’s fool. Yet, he is complex, as all the characters are. While the clumsy, distracted, childlike fool, he consistently shows more bravery than many on screen with him. We see a fierce heart come to life even before his daughter, Hyun-seo (Ko Ah-sung) is kidnapped by the monster.

Nam-joo (Bae Doona) is the family’s pride, an amateur competitive archer who seems to struggle with personal ability and limits. She is good…but not great. We see her compete on TV, and she wins a medal for her amazing aim. Her confidence, though, or perhaps her speed is holding her back.

The other brother, Nam-il (Park Hae-il), was apparently a radical in his college days, but is presently angry, often drunk, and out of work. It is interesting in his arc that in his past he was a radical protestor and he ends his arc by throwing molotov cocktails in an attempt to destroy the HOST, a creature spawned by uncaring authorities/government.

Hee-Bong’s wife has died, and Gang-du’s wife has run off, but I do not feel that in this film women are treated derisively, or as passive objects (unlike in the gross example of Joel Shumacher’s Falling Down. It is true that it is more a story about fathers than mothers, but that seems to be a narrative choice, and not necessarily due to any decision (unconscious or otherwise) to denigrate the Female or Feminine. The derision and two-dimensional portrayal is saved for the (Male, Doctor) Americans. In fact, regarding female portrayal, the youngest girl, Hyun-seo (who is faced with the greatest horrors) is very brave and resourceful. She is both a warrior as well as a nurturer, as she braves the beast, as well as protects and cares for a young boy. Also, Nam-joo has her own arc, her own conflict, and is very instrumental in ”saving the day” …to the extent that the day is saved, that is.

IT IS SIX YEARS before we see the ultimate mutation of that dumped chemical, before we see the creature that will threaten and terrorize and feed upon the people of this city. There are mutated fishes found after two years, but they are but a slim and friendly shadow of what is to soon rise up out of Seoul’s Han River.

As I said, I want to avoid showing The HOST, to avoid damping the impact for those who will watch the film. I won’t tell you how it first appears. But what I really appreciate about this film is that we often are led right up to the edge of typical Horror Film devices, and then Bong Joon-Ho will choose another way. This keeps the American viewer (I cannot really speak for Korean viewers) on the edge of the seat, and really makes for some truly scary moments.

The way the monster comes into the picture is completely atypical, and actually feels very realistic. It throws you off-balance, and much of the film continues this subversion of expectation.

These filmmakers (Bong Joon-Ho along with co-writers Chul-hyun Baek and Wong-jun Ha) know how to do widespread panic. Right away I think of Godzilla (another creature spawned by human science) and I also thought of when I lived in NYC during 9/11. Just the TV scenes that I still have on tape. They easily mirror these scenes, where the monster is tearing ass about the city and citizens are running slow-motion (as well as regular speed) in a blind panic. It is kinetic, scary, fantastic, dreamlike and at the same time, authentic. If you have your TV or computer hooked up to good speakers with some bass, turn it up a little. The pounding of the running beast is a really great (and scary) part of the sound design used throughout the film.

THE LAIR of the creature. A sewer hidden under a bridge. This is truly a nasty and unsettling series of scenes. Dead bodies are dropped here, half-eaten bodies, bones washed clean of meat by stomach acids, and even live humans emerge from the foul maw of the beast. This dark, colorless and gory pit becomes our heroine’s home while her family searches for her. Young Hyun-Seo endures moments that would surely turn a person’s hair white.

The creature is CG and done very, very well. These are not the monster movies of my youth, although Jurassic Park was also quite amazing. It’s very hard to find moments where the effects are unbelievable, and for the most part, you simply experience it as real.

In this pit with Hyun-Seo is a little boy. He was dumped into the pit and managed—probably because of his smaller size (Like Hyun-Seo)—to escape the creature’s mouth mostly unharmed. We met him earlier when he and his older brother were foraging for food. His older brother and he get separated, and the HOST is kind enought to escort the boy into the sewers.

When the kids, nurturing their own hope, talk about what foods they will eat once they escape, Hyun-seo says “A beer.” Of course, we think of her father, Gang-Du, who actually gave her a beer while hanging out with her in Hee-Bong’s stand. In that earlier scene, she objects, claiming she is too young. Her father assures her as a middle-schooler that she is old enough. It is not a regular thing, as we can see, and more than paint a picture of a deviant or alcoholic father, it shows us his “juvenile” and not-grown-up quality. Irresponsible, one might say. As I said, Gang-Du begins this film as a man-child.

Either way, Hyun-Seo’s choice is out of character (for a young American film heroine that’s for sure) and while funny, it also casts the horror of the situation in starker relief. After all, this girl is scared, starving, trapped and watching carloads of bones be vomited clean into a bloody pit, and shrinking under the foul air coming from a man-sized mouth that opens and closes and resembles something like a bizarre human orifice or a wicked flesh flower with sharp teeth and and a bad case of reverse-peristalsis. For her to say “I want a big, juicy, cheeseburger when I get out of here” or something similar just wouldn’t convey any of The Craze of the situation. And it is touching, as it is a way of saying “I want my father” in this context without
being ham-handed about it.

For Joon-Ho (the filmmaker) to deliver that beer into the pit from the gullet of the monster only moments later is both funny and unsettling…is it fate’s statement that
she will never get the chance to get out and have that beer? A dour wink from a sentient monster? Or a sign that her escape is closer than she thinks?

AGAIN, we veer wildly in emotions and styles of storytelling.

Watching Gang-Du struggle in quarantine with bits of information that come his way about his daughter is a torment. Nobody but he, and soon, his family are aware that she is still alive. Of course nobody listens to his complaints. But then, finally someone seems to.

The second American doctor. He is cross-eyed and after asking “Why didn’t you tell the authorities about this?” in an incredulous manner, Gang-Du besgins to cry and rant in sadness, relief, and frustration.

At this, the American Doctor delivers a rather insane assertion that the virus has clearly “spread to this man’s brain.” He now believes it to be contained in Gang-Du’s “frontal lobe.” He orders a Korean doctor to excise it. We don’t know if we are about to watch a lobotomy, but all signs point to Yes. This scene has almost a Jerry Lewis feel to it. If Jerry Lewis were channeling Clive Barker.

Gang-Du is strapped down and I am reminded of A Clockwork Orange, which also toyed with humor and horror in the same tale. This scene finds you alternating between giggles and grimaces, and it is not entirely pleasant. As I said, it keeps you off-balance. A wacky-looking and acting doctor comes and spins a ridiculous and horrifying diagnosis that will end in another man’s being brain-damaged while his daughter, still alive, sits in a sewer with a beast.

Gang-Du protests and screams, alternates between anger and sorrow and fear. He overhears one of the doctors say that there is really no virus at all while they prepare for the operation. This increased the comic feel of it. (We already suspect that the “virus” meme is but a government control mechanism for various reasons, one of which is that we hear other characters angrily claim the same. Further, we see no evidence of any outbreak despite the fearful newscasts that the authorities have used to ”inform” the people of the danger.) As another review says, more or less, you suddenly realize you are laughing at a lobotomy, and you just aren’t sure how to feel about any of it.

To me, this sense of high comedy and blank-faced lunacy blended with moments of bottomless horror is exactly the sensation of many moments in great crisis and extended, unthinkable emergencies.

There are a few times when you have to ask yourself who the antagonist is in the film. Is it the HOST? The monster? Or is it the State? Because the family is more often struggling with dangerous authority than it is the HOST.

Much of the conflict in this film comes from the police, the military, or the medical/government authorities. This is clearly not accidental. SARS, Vietnam and possibly many other allusions are included (some I’m sure I didn’t catch, being an
American). From unneeded lobotomies to ignoring requests to save trapped family members to using TV Newscasts to inform the scared people in the gym rather than speaking to them, the government in this movie is not a helpful one, and occupies an equal spot in terms of antagonist as does the HOST.

Early on, aside from the dumping of poisonous chemicals into the water supply, we see evidence of a bullying, lying system of authority. For example, when all the people are in the gym/emergency shelter area, a man in a biohazard suit comes into the room and begans demanding to know who came in contact with the host. We understand that these people are probably not in for a lollipop. While the entirety of these traumatized people are obeisant, the angry, ex-radical Nam-Il stands up and asks the government agent ”Shouldn’t you be explaining first?” (paraphrase).

At the end, the military decides to dump a massive amount of “Agent Yellow” (shades of Vietnam, anyone?) into the public areas to kill the HOST. Masses of protestors are gathered, and the government is unsympathetic. There are some
very funny moments in a cab where Il-Nam is preparing molotov firebombs for a confrontation with The HOST, and the cabbie snorts at him. “Nobody uses those at protests anymore!”

From the start and to the end, the government is positioned as an agent of harm, irresponsiblity, and as a massive, stupid machinery that hinders people as much as helps them.

I’d love, at this point to talk about some of the character arcs. But I won’t, as I promised a mostly spoiler-free review. The movie is too new for me to do a full Analysis (and thus, this Review), but perhaps once it has been out for a while,
I will come back to it. Because I really love what the story does with the characters and with upsetting expectations. The “lessons” are not always cemented, tho there are some very interesting questions posed.

There is a moment in the stand, at the end of the film, where a character picks up a gun and points it out the window. We are led to believe that there may be danger outside, danger rising from the Han River. For it is the same river, after all. And who knows where the mutation will strike again? Or where it already has?

But the fear of the river and the producing of the gun doesn’t arrive that tired horror-film Last Scene way. You know what I mean: Everyone is laughing on the summer porch and then there is a huge BANG and we all jump. But it’s only the kitty at the screen door, hahahaha, yawn. No, here, the gun coming up quietly is a device used in film where a movement or style or phrase is picked up by someone (else) and you know that a circle has been completed, and this person has taken up a role, or a torch of a sort from someone else. Or a belief. Or a duty. I won’t say more. But watch for guns peeking out of windows. And hungry orphans.

In the end, there is no singular HERO who comes through to save the day, as in many American films; no theme of the might of the individual reinforced here. Do watch for teamwork in bringing the final resolution about, even unintended teamwork.

The movie ends with the stand, alone in a dark night at the edge of a river. Quite an isolated image, and yet it makes perfect sense. The only times we see people moving as one is in a tense crowd under police control, or in a panicked, thoughtless
full-out blind run.

Otherwise? Hyun-Seo was isolated from her family for most of the film. Gang-Du was isolated in his being a freak to the rest of the family, as well as the one with the harshest quarantine (and ultimately, lobotomy). The little boy in the sewer was isolated from his older brother. The family is isolated in their tragedy, moving about within the storm of the general public’s reaction and panic but yet unconnected to it and unseen. We might even say the HOST was isolated in its circumstances and world. Alone, one of a kind, not forged of its own will or doing, and hiding out in the sewers. But if I were to end on that note, you might feel this is another sad Frankenstein movie, and the HOST doesn’t feel that way. This is no poignant freak cast out of society. This amphibious monster doesn’t have a heart. And in my opinion, Frankenstein is prettier.