There is a movie opening in theaters here in the United States on March 9th that won a rather significant award at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. This is not necessarily a guarantee of a great movie. There have been plenty of movies that won large awards at that festival only to be released world-wide and have most critics and audience members going, “huh?”
The movie is called “The Host” and it is the latest movie from acclaimed Korean director Bong Joon-ho. It is, without a doubt, one of the strangest movies I have seen in a long time. It is so strange, such a mixture of genres, so outright weird that it left me sitting on my floor in my apartment stunned for several moments after the screener copy I had ran out.
I am at a loss as to even explain what this movie is about. According to the press material this movie is part monster movie and part human drama. This is both true. However, it is also extremely comedic. It also has a lot of Americans who turn out to be villains. In fact, it is the Americans who start the whole mess in the very beginning of the movie.
There is a U.S. Military base. It appears to be a lab. There is a Korean worker there who is being chastised by his American military supervisor. His supervisor is telling him that he hates dust and because the hundreds of bottles full of chemicals in the lab are coated with dust he wants the bottles dumped down the sink and then the bottles themselves disposed of. See, nasty wasteful Americans with no concern for the environment force the noble Korean worker who only wants to follow the rules to violate them and then contaminate the Han River.
Well, you know what happens in Asian films when bad things are dumped in the water. In “Godzilla” it was nuclear testing and unleashed a giant lizard. I have no idea what spawned Gamora the giant flying turtle with rockets for legs but I am probably sure it had to do with something hurtful being introduced into a pond of turtles. Yes, we get quick flashes a few years later where two men are fishing and catch some small mutated fish with multiple fins.
Flash forward another few years and we find a man getting ready to jump off of the bridge who notices something strange swimming in the waters below. Then, finally, jump ahead to 2006 and a food stand on the Han River catering to the summer vacationers lounging beside the river providing them with delicacies such as roasted squid and beer. Before too long there is a giant fish-like monster slinking off from underneath a bridge and jumping onto land and it starts wreaking havoc everywhere it goes. What happens next/
Well, what happens next is classic Asian monster movie fare. We get shots of a lot of people in a crowd running away from a monster that must have been invisible on the set but is very visible thanks to CGI effects that are surprisingly effective.
Before all of this we meet a rather charming family. We meet the people who own one of the food stands. There is the blonde-haired lummox known as Gang-du. He has a daughter who barely tolerates him named Hyun-seo. We also meet Gang-du’s father and watch as they all sit inside the food stand and watch international coverage of an national archery contest and we learn that Gang-du’s sister is on the national archery team.
Then the monster comes. I have to admit these scenes are very effective and surprisingly terrifying. The monster is some kind of toad and fish hybrid thing. It has a mouth lined with teeth that opens from four sides. It has legs, many of them, scattered all over its body and a very long tail that it uses as a kind of tentacle. It wreaks havoc, killing randomly and then grabbing Hyun-seo in its tail and running off.
Everyone thinks that Hyun-seo is dead. This leads to a very strange scene where the entire family gathers at a kind of memorial for the dead from the river incident. They all end up wailing, hugging each other, and then rolling around on the floor. No sooner does this comedic and slapstick scene end and some official in a biohazard suit shows up, slips and falls and then delivers several more comedic lines.
It turns out the fish-thing is the carrier of some disease. It is “The Host” of this particular disease. Anyone who has been in contact with it stands the risk of coming down with this disease. Gang-du had blood from the fish thing on his face so before he can do anything he and his entire family are quarantined. Then, in the middle of the night, Gang-du gets a cell phone call from his daughter. She is alive.
What follows is at time tense, at times frustrating, at times exciting and all of the time very strange adventure. The family has to get out of the hands of the government. Then the family has to figure out where Hyun-seo is being kept. Then it has to fight off the monster. Then it has to fight off more Americans determined to use some kind of super bomb that wipes out biological threats.
There are also strangely touching moments with the family. Each of these is accompanied by more comedy. The entire family things Gang-du is an idiot and utterly hopeless. The father explains why Gang-du is the way he is. Meanwhile his other children, to whom he is trying to explain this, are falling asleep with boredom.
That is how this whole movie goes. There is genuine horror here. This monster is truly unpleasant. The special effects work very well. The chase scenes are very exciting. This whole movie is very well filmed. Even the sound effects are done particularly well. It is also well acted especially young Ko A-sung who plays the daughter Hyun-seo.
Is it any good? Well, as I said this movie is very strange. It is definitely trying to do something different. It is a movie I will definitely remember. Does that make it good? I am not sure, but it is enough for me to recommend it to those of you looking for unique movies to see. It’s called “The Host” and it will be in theaters on March 9th. Watch for it.
