The host the most
Slimy appendages, that is
DYLAN FERGUSON STAFF
PHOTO: ODEON FILMS/ALLIANCE ATLANTIS MEDIA
There has been a huge surge of creative Korean cinema in the last five or so years, and many people have taken to calling it the Korean New Wave. The movement has produced a wealth of violent gangster movies, giddy romantic comedies, Buddhist dramas, and combinations thereof. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first big, slimy monster movie.
The Host is a Spielbergian romp full of gee-whiz action, ass-clenching dread, delirious chuckles, and fine cheese.
Speciously created by dumping countless bottles of toxic chemicals into the Han River (upon the urging of an evil American), the creature in question is a great, green, sticky, multi-legged amphibious thing with a huge, unfolding chomper of a mouth and a prehensile tail that can snatch you up from a distance. Yeah, it’s pretty fucking cool.
The beast first appears in a masterful sequence that begins with it hanging from beneath a bridge as onlookers snacking at the riverside park snap pictures with their cellphones. Once the creature drops into the water and approaches the shore, there is no widespread terror or pounding musical fanfare. Rather, people throw beer cans and random shit at it, and are disappointed when it leaves. Until someone turns around and sees it galloping towards them, tossing bodies out of its path, beginning a great, joyous spectacle, part terror, part comedy, as the thing ransacks the park and all its screaming inhabitants. It is the greatest sequence in the movie.
During the initial rampage, one of the beast’s victims is the daughter of the mentally inept narcoleptic hero Gang-du (Kang-ho Song), whom it then carries back to its lair (a sewer) possibly because it needs a snack for later, possibly because it is familiar with fairy-tale conventions. Gang-du gathers together his crusty father, his alcoholic perpetual-student brother, and his professional-archer-with-anxiety-issues sister,
Directed by: Joon-Ho Bong
In theatres March 30
♥♥♥ out of 5
and together they set out to hunt down the slimy bastard and rescue the little girl. At this point the film turns into something of a dysfunctional family “dramedy,” of the kind where everyone has to learn to overcome their problems and get along. But instead of getting onstage and dancing to “Superfreak,” they’re going to slay a horrible, groaning mutant.
It is one of the most compelling conventions of Korean New Wave to switch back and forth between seemingly inconsistent tones and to cram as many styles or genres into one movie as possibly. This was most famously done in Park Chan-wook’s mash-up masterpiece Oldboy. The Host, with its mix of foreboding dread, family comedy, and twisted paranoid satire, definitely has this to its credit. It also partakes in another New Wave hallmark: comedy at bizarre times. There is a great scene, in which the family is grieving over a memorial for the daughter, that devolves into slapstick comedy as they begin pushing and wrestling with each other for mourning rights, each person enclosed in their own circle of grief.
As for that “twisted paranoid satire,” I’m referring to an odd subplot involving America’s intervention in the monster crisis. The Americans decide to take matters into their own hands to stop the spread of a contagious pathogen they believe the creature introduced — even though there is no evidence this pathogen exists. U.S. military authorities capture Gang-du, quarantine and even lobotomize him. People are no doubt going to dig for meaning in this “political satire,” but I don’t think there’s much real commentary going on. Without an ulterior motive (besides paranoia) to hunt down Korean citizens, the Americans mostly come off as malicious psychopaths.
The Host is the third feature by clever writer-director Bong Joon-ho, who previously made the comedy Barking Dogs Never Bite and the crime drama Memories of Murder. Bong likes to deal in social commentary, but in The Host he touches on a seemingly endless list of topics without ever coming to a conclusion or addressing something thoroughly. There is a danger in Korean New Wave films of the “auteur” director getting so into the madcap, slap-dash style, that they fail to satisfyingly focus on any one thing.
The Host works, but only as grandiose entertainment, in a very populist sense. In fact, it is the most successful Korean film to date.
The fact that Korean movies, with their suddenly enormous popularity at home and abroad, have seemingly given in to huge budgets and a Spielberg-like sensibility of easy, accessible entertainment, may make some concerned that the New Wave has imploded and gone Hollywood. That is decidedly bad. But as long as there’s big, slurping, galloping, flesh-eating creatures to send me into paroxysms of childish delight, it’s all good.
