The Host

The Host (2006) is about a creature that comes out of the Han River, and the creature's origin is a real event. A disorganised family runs a snack stall by the river in Seoul. One afternoon something comes out from under the bridge, attacks the crowd and takes their young daughter. The state declares her dead and puts the family in quarantine. Then she calls: she is alive. The real subject is not the creature but institutions. Nobody believes the family, the quarantine is pointless, the official account is wrong, and everyone is busy with a story about an epidemic instead of looking for the girl. In the end the family goes alone. The creature's origin actually happened. In 2000 an official working at an American base in Korea ordered close to four hundred and seventy bottles of formaldehyde poured down a drain, and it ran into the Han River. It is known as the McFarland incident. Bong made it the opening scene. The creature is shown in full, in daylight, in the open, in its first scene. Horror convention hides the monster; Bong does the opposite, and the tension comes not from seeing it but from being unable to get away from it. The register keeps sliding: comedy, horror and family drama inside the same scene. The mourning scene in the funeral hall is the best moment in it. It became the most watched film in Korea to that point. It runs 120 minutes. Good for: creature films, Bong Joon Ho, and political satire. Less good for: the tonal shifts are abrupt and the ending is bitter.