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The Host aka Gwoemul
Running time: 119 minutes
Directed by: Joon-ho Bong
Starring: Kang-ho Song
IMDB rating: 7.1
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0468492/
The film begins with two people in some kind of laboratory speaking in English. For a moment I was worried that I'd downloaded a ****ty dubbed version, but it was actually an American character talking to Korean colleage. The American orders him to tip chemicals down a drain that leads to a major river, despite the fact that the Korean clearly doesn't think it the right thing to do.
Obviously a scene like that makes you think that you're about to see some kind of social/political commentary on American's influence on other countries, though by the end of the film I wasn't quite sure what exactly the point being made was. No doubt the writer/director was trying to make some kind of statement on the subject, but to me it felt underdeveloped, or possibly it was too subtle for my brain to pick up on.
The film introduces us to a family (young daughter, father, grandfather) who are sitting in the shop they run, watching the dad's sister compete in a national archery event on TV. It becomes apparent that the father (Kang-ho Song in about the 8th role I've seen him play) is lazy and not particularly bright, and he has to go outside to give some customers extra food after he messed up their original order by eating part of it.
Soon after he goes outside, a big giant monster thing comes out of the nearby river and attacks everyone. The monster looks a bit like a komodo dragon, but 100x bigger and more agile. This was the best part of the film, as the father and a couple of other people alternate between trying to escape, and trying to attack the creature in order to save other people. Sadly, the daughter of the family ends up coming outside, where she is attacked by the monster and dragged into the water.
The mourning scene that followed was where my enjoyment level went down a bit. The overacting was ridiculous, loud hysterics, falling over etc. I can't believe that the director intended this to be a serious scene, but on the other hand, having a completely serious film suddenly have a comedic moment when a family are mourning the death of a child is also pretty odd.
My two biggest issues with the film were the tone (too much of it felt lightweight, and the serious scenes were overly dramatic and drawn out)and the fact that I never really cared for any of the characters.
The government fear that anyone who came into contact wth the creature may have been infected with a virus, so sends in a team of soldiers and scientists to sort things out. After being quarantined, the family escape, and try to evade the authorities with mixed success. The whole thing was quite boring and felt like one of those made-for-TV movies you see on the Sci-Fi channel.
It picks up a bit towards the end, but also goes for powerful drama, which I wasn't feeling at all.
A decent enough monster movie, but nothing more than that.
6/10