Coty Geek
I’m a huge, huge, HUGE fan of Asian movies. Especially Asian Horror/Sci-Fi movies. The Korean film The Host is no exception.
The film follows a family as they try to recover a little girl who has been taken by a river monster.
Sounds simple enough, right? Well, no. First of all, this family is disfunctional at best. The main character, Gang-Du is “slow witted”. Not the sharpest tool in the shed, and it can be argued that his daughter’s, Hyun-seo, being taken is his fault. His slow wittedness is attributed to being beaten up and malnourished as a child. His brother is a college dropout and alcoholic. His father is somewhat of a pushover. His sister is an archery competitor, ashamed of only winning a bronze medal due to taking too long to fire. And to make it all worse, the US and Korean governments report that the creature is carrying a virus.
The thing that makes this monster movie stand above every monster movie since Jaws is simple: There’s a genuine heart and message behind it. The film shows how tragedy can bring a family together. Not only that, but there is also a biting political satire in it towards both the US military as well as (but to a lesser extent) the Korean Government. Director Bong Joon-Ho sets up some great shots to make this fim nice and atmospheric. Another great thing is that the monster only appears a few times in the film, instead choosing to focus on the main characters. And the monster itself is also a high point. Instead of a gargantuan, couple hundred foot tall beast, this monster is roughly the size of a large truck. Somehow that makes it scarier and more realistic to me. This movie stands as one of my favorite, if not my favorite, monster movies.
You can pick it up here!
The Host [Blu-ray]
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