Gwoemul or "The Host" B+

On DVD, Foreign language with subtitles, 119 minutes, Rated R. Trailer.


The Host is a Korean creature feature with some real jolts that better critiques the US invasion of Iraq and our reasons for doing so than any film out of Hollywood on the subject (including recently reviewed “In the Valley of Elah”). Americans are portrayed in fairly shallow, one-dimensional ways through the majority of the film, especially the opening sequence in which Formaldehyde is poured into Seoul’s Han River, leading to the mutated “Host”. The part-lizard, part-fish, part who-knows-what eventually emerges from the river and attacks a group of on-lookers, eating some and swallowing Park Hyunseo, played to perfection by Ah Sung-Ko, an eighth-grade girl who’s father and grandfather barely escape. Having reported her as one of the dead, they receive a cell call from Hyunseo telling them she is alive and down in a sewer of sorts. It seems the monster swallows multiple people and deposits them in a "holding cell" where he can save them until he is hungry. The balance of the film deals with the families attempt to rescue Hyunseo, which is complicated by the government’s fear that Hyunseo’s father is mentally ill and the security forces that are brought in to keep rubber-neckers at bay.

The name comes from the American military’s determination that the monster is a host to a SARS-type virus, leading to the quarantining of everyone that comes in contact with the creature. In the beginning, I found the special effects surrounding the monster itself (often appearing to be a number of men running in a above-average monster outfit) to be too distracting to allow any suspension of disbelief. However, more CGI is used as the film progresses and I just got used to it, leading to some real suspense and fear as the film progresses. The acting is good, if at times overly-dramatic in the way that Asian films often feel to me (think if the cutting-of-the-tongue-out scene in Old Boy). Still, a very enjoyable film in a genre that the Asians invented and that we Americans never seem to get quite right. Probably because we think the point is the monster, when, of course, it’s the people. B+