The Host [2006]

The Host, directed by the acclaimed South Korean director of Memories of a Murder fame, is summer blockbuster like few of its kind. On one hand it is a pretty darn satisfying popcorn churner with some rip-roaring thrill quotient, while on the other it is a darkly comic character study and a potent socio-political commentary. The movie starts off with a blatant abuse of the environment when an American scientist orders his Korean assistant to clear bottles after bottles of formaldehyde into the basin, and that ends up producing an uncouth blood-thirsty creature that one not-so-fine day jumps out of River Han and creates mayhem in Seoul. The movie kicks into full-throttle when the young daughter of our dim-witted but courageous protagonist (Song Kang-ho), belong to a dysfunctional but courageous family, takes a vow to get even with the ugly monster and rescue her daughter who has been trapped in a dank sewer of the labyrinthine drainage systems by the river. The movie boasts of some fine SFX and scintillating action sequences; but the maverick director managed to make this a genre-bending film by having oddball characters with their share of idiosyncrasies taking the place of regular heroes expected in creature films, and infusing his quintessential dose of black humour which will even make you cringe at times. And the underlying statement on our rapidly deteriorating environment through human callousness, too, shall not be lost on the viewers.





Director: Bong Joon-ho
Genre: Thriller/Black Comedy/Social Satire/Science-Fiction/Creature Film
Language: Korean
Country: South Korea