THE HOST - Korean Monster Hit

[romanD]

Well, me reporting from the asian Movieworld reporting again.

So far I can honestly say I have never liked any movie from South Korea whatsoever. BLUE SKY (aka WONDERFUL DAYS) was the only watchable so far, but that was an animated movie and still pretty boring, just impressed by its splendid visuals and nice music. All the rest sucked heavily.
So when I heard of THE HOST and that it broke all records over there I was not really interested. Still, after hearing so good reviews and that FX were handled by WETA and THE ORPHANAGE I thought I give it one last try and the limited box had also the (supposedly) good score included, so at least something. The box wasn't all that expensive at yesasia.com, but is sold out there already. Still available at dvdfromkorea.com. There is also a 3disc set, which has smaller packaging and no score of course...

And boy the movie did not disappoint. Do yourself a favor and check it out. This is really something fresh and original in the monster genre. For starters, do you remember a monster movie where the creature shows up right after 5minutes? In broad daylight? And save it for one scene is only running around during the day? And it doesn't look cheap? This is some cool creature, which resembles Kothoga from RELIC a bit I have to admit, but moves in ways which can only be described as cooooool.

The story is about a little girl kidnapped by the mutated fish/frogmonster in the middle of Seoul. The military tries to cover this event up and puts everybody in quarantine who saw the creature, as it supposedly is the host for some deadly virus. As nobody is there to turn to for help to get their daughter back her family takes the hunt for the monster in their own hands. But as Dad is a little bit retarded chances are slim the girl or anybody will get out alive at all...

That the father is mentally challenged is just one of the many wonderful and mostly subtle ideas the director/writer brings to the table. Despite being an ordinary monstermovie the movie is not ordinary at all. There are many very poetic moments in the movie, which you "get" only after some time and work on many levels (for example the very nice dinner scene... during a break the family comes together to eat, but suddenly the little girl sits with them at the table and just when you got that you see that it was only a dream by the girl, hiding in the monster's lair). There is also quite some social commentary about the SK Government and the US military based there, but as we go through the events only with the family all those things remain pretty unclear... there is some cover up and some weird things going on with the actions against the creature, but we never fully understand them... just as the family is not knowing what's going on...

and then there is the wonderful humour, which I honestly havent seen before. There are so many hilarious and absurd moments, which fit so perfectly into the mayhem, that you could almost say the movie is a comedy... it is not, but still it is very funny and intentionally so. Some jokes are very subtle, some loud out slapstick. Loved the moment when everybody is hiding in a trailor and one guy is trying to get in, but they slam the door in front of him. Then the monster rushes to the poor guy, but passes him and crashes right into the trailor, eating everybody in there. Most jokes however shouldnt be spoiled as they are so unexpected, would ruin the fun!

And even if you don't like the commentary, the strange characters, the absurd humour, then you still will enjoy this movie for its amazing effects, the wonderful design, camerawork and its incredible score, which is so different to what you would expect it is hard to describe. If you know Jean Pierre Jeunets AMELIE or DELICATESSEN then you might know what kind of feeling the score creates... to have a big monster on the rampage and you hear a chamber orchestra score with quirky melodies, now that's what I call bold! But it works... I can't get the themes out of my head anymore and just love every single cue on the CD.

There is of course a remake in the works in the US, which makes me yawn already, but I can understand why they do it... there are certainly elements in this movie which Western Audiences not grab and there will definitely be a big recap of some Soldier who tells the family what is going on and what their plan is... I found it refreshing to let the audience make up their own theory.

And in the end... I felt very sorry for the monster... it is evil and eats everything, but still it has some loneliness feel. I dont know why... but I guess it is just so well done and has so much character that you like it somehow...

don't wait for the crappy remake get the DVD from Korea (it's subtitled and the Extras are fantastic)! Or in February there is a good 2 Disc Version coming out in the UK...

[AndyDursin]

Thanks Roman, I will make sure to see this at some point!

[mkaroly]

Speaking of Asia cinema (and cinema outside the US in general), Criterion made an announcement about their new ECLIPSE series that will be doing some cool stuff I guess. I'm kind of excited about this project, especially since they will tackle Mizoguchi and Ozu, among others. The 'mission statement' was posted on December 14- if this link doeesn't work, go to Criterion's website. It starts on March 27 with Ingmar Bergman.

http://www.criterionco.com/blog/2006_12 ... 1941207207

I was unable to attend a series of films from Mizoguchi being shown at the Wexner Center here in Columbus due to schedule conflicts- UGETSU is a masterpiece. Anyway, I'm excited about some of the films this series could produce, even though they won't be as awesome as the stuff Criterion remasters.

[MarkB]

Okay, RomanD, I just ordered a copy of this based solely on your recommendation. If I don't like it, I'm comin' after you for my refund!

Seriously, thanks for the review. One of my monster-lovin' friends has been talking about this for awhile now, so I figured I'd give it a shot. I'll follow up with my own comments once I've had a chance to watch it. I hope it's as fun as it sounds.

Mark

[AndyDursin]

I finally saw this over the weekend in an excellent HD transfer, and have to say I was thoroughly impressed by the monster sequences but let down by the middle, which I found tedious (the whole faux-virus plot essentially goes nowhere)...a really schizophrenic film too, with wild swings of tone (broadly comic to tragic). I also hated the resolution, which probably read fine on paper but came out to be thoroughly unsatisfying after sitting through 2 hours of the movie.

Overall I would certainly recommend it for a one-time view and for all the creature material, which was nifty. Beyond that it was a real mixed bag, and I wasn't a real big fan of the music either, which felt inappropriate in a few places.

[romanD]

so MarkB, how did you like it?

I can understand your critizism, but there are definitely things in it, which have some cultural background, which is hard for us to understand for us Westeners, so in certain aspects it is a bit hard to judge. I understand if the humour is not your thing, but I laughed quite a lot and liked it.

The ending is a bit weird, but if you pay close attention it seems like...


Spoilers



the girl died because she was shot by the military, while she was hanging in the monsters mouth. She has clearly bullet holes in her back and also her dad tries exactly to prevent that. But they dont go into much detail there then.
I didnt find the ending so downbeat as Dad finds a new child with the young boy... a bit strange maybe, but the emotions were made clear in the short editing when he takes up the dead body of his daughter but intercut with the young boy in his arms... I thought that was a very nice, unusual way to tell this.




Spoilers end


well, we see what Hollywood makes out of this.

[AndyDursin]

SPOILERS TOO.................

the girl died because she was shot by the military, while she was hanging in the monsters mouth.

I didn't get that at all out of it. That theory doesn't make any sense. The monster "swallows" the two of them while they're still in the creature's lair. The girl is dead once the father pulls them out of the creature, and they're not hanging out of its mouth -- they're basically inside the monster and being digested by that point.

At no point do you see the two of them "hanging out" of the monster's mouth.

If you WERE supposed to think that, the movie did a terrible job trying to show it.

I didnt find the ending so downbeat as Dad finds a new child with the young boy... a bit strange maybe, but the emotions were made clear in the short editing when he takes up the dead body of his daughter but intercut with the young boy in his arms

I understand what it was going for but it didn't work for me. That character is in the movie for a couple of minutes so it's like a lousy "consolation prize" after watching this other character try for 2 hours to escape. The movie wants you to feel that the hero is OK because he's now got this other child in his life, but IMO the movie didn't do enough to justify that feeling.

Overall I liked a lot of it, but for the most part I felt it was still overrated, like a lot of these hyped foreign imports (DAYWATCH?) that have their moments but aren't nearly what they were cracked up to be.