Review: The Host (South Korea, 2006)

The Host (괴물) bills itself as a monster movie, when in fact it’s so much more, with terrific elements of black comedy and a political undertone that is evident throughout, director Bong Joon-ho has put together a superb film.

The film is based around a mutated creature living in Han River that kidnaps a young schoolgirl; Hyun-seo (played by Ko Ah-seong), it is then up to her family to try and rescue her. Each family member has their own little quirk or personal obstacles to over come, for example the aunt Nam-joo (played by Bae Doona) has a tendency to hesitate under pressure.

As the film progresses it becomes harder for the family to attempt to save Hyun-seo because of government intervention and an overwhelming American presence around Han River. After a fear over a outbreak of a deadly virus, that started with the creature and passed on to Park Gang-du (played by Song Kang-ho); Hyun-seo’s father, the family become wanted fugitives and the pressure mounts on them as the continue to find the monsters nest to save Hyun-seo.

What was I found good about this particular picture was the monster itself, unlike typical monster movies I’ve seen before, we actually get to see a good view of this particular monster form early on. The monster itself is quite bizarre; it does have a look of a mutation (or what I would imagine a mutation to look like). The film also has some quite funny moments and I like the political aspect included about the American involvement too.

I highly recommend this film to anyone, I’m not a massive fan of monster movies, but I found this film a delight to watch.

Director: Bong Joon-ho
Year: 2006

Introduction

Welcome to a new Blog, as an avid Blogger I decided to make a Blog dedicated to Asian Cinema, in which I can post reviews, trailers etc on forth coming films I recommend.

I’ve had a liking for Asian films for a couple of years now, starting with the first time I saw Ringu. Although recently my taste has been reignited in Asian Cinema, mainly due to the fact I love most aspects of the films I’ve seen and I’ve become increasingly bored of Hollywood films.

So this is my little homage to brilliant films coming out of Asia, although the title of the Blog is Asian Horror Flicks, I will not simply stick to films falling in the J-Horror or K-Horror genres and will look at a wide aspect of films coming from such countries as Korea, Japan, Thailand, China and so on.