The Host is probably the best-known South Korean movie at a time when East Asian films have garnered a following and become a source of ideas for a Hollywood short on ideas. A monster movie that resonates on several frequencies, The Host is out on a DVD set, “The Bong Joon-ho Collection,” with bonus material and two of director Joon-ho’s other films, the murder mystery Mother and his directorial debut, Barking Dogs Never Bite.
The Host deliberately references Japan’s most famous creature flick, Godzilla, but the specter of the atom bomb has been replaced by a newer anxiety: toxic waste. Joon-ho’s monster is a slippery amphibian, roughly the size of a U-Haul trailer, with Alien mandibles. The opening sequence shows that it was spawned in Seoul’s Han River through the careless disposal of liquid toxins at a laboratory headed by an American scientist. The U.S., whose military presence in South Korea is unavoidable, is a duplicitous element in a story that leaves no one looking good.
Naturally, the creature attacks and eats humans, who scream and writhe as they disappear into its jaws. Like a monster of ancient lore, it keeps a lair (deep within the sewers) filled with the bones of its victims and several people it keeps alive, including the 13-year old girl at the heart of the story. A trail of breadcrumbs isn’t necessary. She calls her father for help on a cell phone. Unfortunately, the Korean authorities think dad is nuts.
After the monster’s first assault, police sirens fill the air and brigades of troops with armor arrive to seal off the area. It’s a drill familiar from 1950s monster movies—but with an important difference. In those days the authorities were diligent if initially overwhelmed. In The Host, they are inept, corrupt and deceitful. Their instructions to the fleeing populace include ordering them to watch cable news for information.
The family of the 13-year old defy orders and set out to rescue her; the little clan, while at least highly motivated, are comical in their varying degrees of inability and almost ceaseless squabbling. Fear-factor news reports claim that the monster is the host to an unknown virus and all steps must be taken to prevent a pandemic. Regardless, the family soldiers on in their quest. The ordinary folk in The Host are not exemplary but easily distracted by the narcotic glow of televised entertainment. They are as greedy and duplicitous as the forces that shape their environment, yet the family’s struggle to rescue the young girl shows that a core of human virtue remains intact amid the social and environmental degradation.
From a filmmaking perspective, The Host is an uneven effort. Just like Godzilla, the version on DVD is dubbed in doubtful English; its digital look is flat and listless and its vaunted computer imagining is less than breathtaking, But there are several great cinematic moments, including the climactic scene, whose iconography draws from images of St. George and other mythic dragonslayers. The most disturbing thing about the tale is that humanity carelessly created the monster and society has no idea what to do with it.
