The Host provides a perfect introduction to several of the key facets of Bong Joon Ho’s filmmaking that wind their way through his entire oeuvre and make the films feel distinctly his. First is his playful application of genre. The Host is loudly and proudly a creature feature, but it’s one that blends aspects of the Hollywood blockbuster and Japanese kaiju (monster) films with the interpersonal dynamics of a family drama and satirical political landscape. If you throw in the trappings of a kidnap thriller (Bong once argued this, saying that the kidnapper just happened to be a monster), you have an idea of the various genres colliding in this single film and often in a single scene. It makes the film as slippery a prospect as its aquatic antagonist.
Tone is something similarly difficult to pin down in Bong’s films, the atmosphere often shifting from tragic to farcical in an instant. In one scene early in The Host, a grieving grandfather solemnly swears vengeance on the amphibious beast that took his granddaughter from him. The camera then pans away and observes over his shoulder as a city official in a biohazard suit walking behind him slips over, as if on a banana peel. The Host’s monster was apparently designed with Steve Buscemi’s turn in Fargo (1996) in mind, and Bong’s film shares the Coens’ penchant for careering between bloody violence and broad comedy.
Then there is The Host’s political satire, which isn’t woven subtly through metaphor (though that certainly exists as well) as much as played up front. Bong’s films regularly feature protagonists who live at the bottom of the economic pile and who struggle against the overwhelming opposition they face in society. That’s the case here too, but The Host has also been described as the first major Korean film to overtly criticise the legacy of the US in the country – in the opening scene, an American scientist forces his Korean subordinate to pour formaldehyde into the Han, thus creating the film’s monster.
There are various other pointed references to recent Korean history – from the student demonstrations and defence drills of the 1980s to the collapse of the Seongsu Bridge in 1994 – and the film features a Korean-US task force that’s laughably ineffectual in responding to the emergency.
Ben Nicholson, bfi.org.uk, 20 January 2020
SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot.
A contemporary review
A monster movie more interested in human relationships than spectacle, The Host is an offbeat genre piece from South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon Ho. A South Korean and Japanese co-production, it has drawn comparisons with the Godzilla series, which Bong has resisted, claiming there’s a vast difference in scale between the skyscraper stomping super lizard Godzilla and his smaller (perhaps 30-foot-long) amphibious beast. Such distinctions of scale could also be applied to the films’ narratives. The original Godzilla (1954) revelled in the apocalyptic destruction of Tokyo, playing with post-Hiroshima nuclear anxieties. In comparison, The Host is happier shunting its creature to the sidelines. It’s less a movie about monsters, than about how ordinary folk cope with them.
That isn’t to suggest that The Host doesn’t have its fair share of creature feature action. As he proved in his breakout sophomore effort, the gripping police procedural drama Memories of Murder, Bong understands the conventions of genre cinema well. The opening reel of The Host delivers a crowd-pleasing adrenalin burst early on; its gelatinous CGI creature (pitched somewhere between a giant acrobatic tadpole and one of Alien conceptual artist H.R. Giger’s Xenomorphs) emerges from Korea’s Han River into a tranquil picnic spot. Stunned onlookers snap photos with mobile phones, then flee in panic as the beast rampages. It’s a masterful sequence, seamlessly blending GGI and live action as citizens are stomped, eaten and batted into the air by the creature’s tail.
After this thunderous mayhem, the monster’s screen time is limited. Bong instead concentrates on kiosk worker Park Gang-du (Song Kang-ho), a near narcoleptic single father whose daughter Hyun-seo (Goh Ah-sung) has been dragged to the beast’s underground lair. The dysfunctional Park family (Gang-du, his siblings and his father) are happier bickering among themselves than actually getting much done. This lets Bong spend the movie’s middle section following their capture by the US military and their subsequent escape, recapture and re-escape, while throwing in much of Korea’s peculiar brand of slapstick. It also allows him to focus on his main theme: the psychological and emotional devastation the monster’s attack has on this family. The allegory of the psychic wounds engendered by Korea’s division into North and South is presented through themes of ruptured families and motherhood.
Significantly, Bong is less interested in anti-communist scaremongering than in showing how this family reunites against a very different monster: the uncaring and incompetent authorities. Bearing the brunt of the film’s anti-authoritarian satire is the US military, which emerges as more of a threat than the creature itself. American incompetence causes the crisis (as toxic chemicals are dumped into the Han River in the prologue) and the US military fails to contain the unfortunate results. Instead of tracking the monster, the Americans waste valuable time chasing a chimerical virus and threatening the civilian population with the dubiously named anti-viral concoction ‘Agent Yellow’. True, The Host’s anti-authoritarian satire never amounts to very much, but it’s intriguingly leftfield.
Jamie Russell, Sight and Sound, November 2006
The Host Gwaemul
Director: Bong Joon Ho
©: Chungeorahm Film
Production Company: Chungeorahm Film
In association with: Happinet Pictures, OCN, Knowledge & Creation Ventures Co. Ltd., IBK Capital Corporation, Cineclick Asia, IMM Venture Capital, SBS, Inc. M-Venture Investment, Tube Pictures, Sego Entertainment Co. Ltd., CJ Venture Investment, Boston Investment Co. Ltd.
Presented by: Showbox, Chungeorahm Film, Mediaplex
Executive Producers: Choi Yong-bae, Kim Woo-taek
Producer: Choi Yong-bae
Investment: Jung Jin-ki, Jeong Tae-sung
Co-producer: Joh Neung-yeon
Production Manager: Park Bong-soo
Production Accountants: Kim Min-kyung, Sung Eun-jeong
1st Assistant Director: Kim Joon-soo
2nd Assistant Directors: Lee Won-hee, Kim Min-seok, Cho Won-yeol, Kim Kyung-mo, Kang Ji-ee, Kim Sung-ho
Script Supervisor: Hah Joon-won
Screenplay: Bong Joon Ho, Hah Jun-won, Baek Chul-hyun
Director of Photography: Kim Hyung-ku
Lighting: Lee Gang-san, Jung Young-min
B Camera: Sung Seung-taek
C Camera: Kim Byung-seo
Steadicam Operator: Yeo Kyung-bo
Supervising Electrician: Yoo Geun-hee
Key Grip: Choi Woon-jin
Visual Effects Supervisor: Kevin Rafferty
Visual Effects: The Orphanage LLC
Visual Effects Executive Producers: Marc Sadeghi, Luke O’Byrne
Visual Effects Producer: Arin Finger
Special Effects Supervisor: Kim Byung-kee, Future Vision
Computer Graphics: EON Digital Films
Animation: The Orphanage LLC
Editor: Kim Sun-min
Art Director: Ryu Seung-hee
Set Designer: Yang Hong-sam
Production Design Unit: Oh Jae-young
Set Decorator: Lee Jin-woo
Props Master: Jang Seok-ho
Costumes: Cho Sang-kyoung
Make-up/Hair: Song Jong-hee
Animatronics: John Cox’s Creature Workshop
Creature Design: Jang Hee-chul
Special Make-up: Kwak Tae-yong, Hwang Hyo-kyun, Cell
Creature Animatronics Supervisor: John Cox
Music: Musikdorf
Music Composer/Adaptation: Lee Byung-woo
Sound Designers: Lee In-gyoo, Joh Ye-jin
Sound Supervisor: Choi Tae-young
Sound Recording: Lee Seung-chul
Re-recording Mixers: Choi Tae-young, Park Yong-ki
Creature Sound Design: Sean Garnhart, Coll Anderson
Sound Effects Editors: Kang Hye-young, Kim Mi-ra
Cast
Song Kang-ho (Park Gang-du)
Byun Hee-bong (Park Hee-bong)
Park Hae-il (Park Nam-il)
Bae Doo-na (Park Nam-ju)
Goh Ah-sung (Park Hyun-seo)
Oh Dal-soo (creature voice)
Lee Jae-eung (Se-jin)
Lee Dong-ho (Se-ju)
Yoon Je-moon (homeless man)
Yim Pil-sung (Nam-il’s old schoolmate)
Kim Roi-ha (man in yellow)
Yoo Yeon-soo (manager CHO)
Park No-shik (arms broker)
Go Soo-hee (nurse taken hostage)
Scott Wilson (Douglas)
Kim Hak-sun (Mr Kim)
Paul Lazar (US doctor)
Brian Lee (young Korean doctor)
David Josep Anselmo (Sgt Donald)
Shin Seung-ree (Donald’s girlfriend)
South Korea-Japan 2006
120 mins
Digital
The screening on Thu 24 Apr will be introduced by translator and film critic Darcy Paquet
With thanks to
SIGHT AND SOUND
Never miss an issue with Sight and Sound, the BFI’s internationally renowned film magazine. Subscribe from just £25*
*Price based on a 6-month print subscription (UK only). More info: sightandsoundsubs.bfi.org.uk
BFI SOUTHBANK
Welcome to the home of great film and TV, with three cinemas and a studio, a world-class library, regular exhibitions and a pioneering Mediatheque with 1000s of free titles for you to explore. Browse special-edition merchandise in the BFI Shop.We're also pleased to offer you a unique new space, the BFI Riverfront – with unrivalled riverside views of Waterloo Bridge and beyond, a delicious seasonal menu, plus a stylish balcony bar for cocktails or special events. Come and enjoy a pre-cinema dinner or a drink on the balcony as the sun goes down.
BECOME A BFI MEMBER
Enjoy a great package of film benefits including priority booking at BFI Southbank and BFI Festivals. Join today at bfi.org.uk/join
BFI PLAYER
We are always open online on BFI Player where you can watch the best new, cult & classic cinema on demand. Showcasing hand-picked landmark British and independent titles, films are available to watch in three distinct ways: Subscription, Rentals & Free to view.
See something different today on player.bfi.org.uk
Join the BFI mailing list for regular programme updates. Not yet registered? Create a new account at www.bfi.org.uk/signup
Programme notes and credits compiled by Sight and Sound and the BFI Documentation Unit
Notes may be edited or abridged
Questions/comments? Contact the Programme Notes team by email