The Host (2006): A monster emerges from Seoul’s Han River and focuses its attention on attacking people.
As for most of the good Asian films, this is a very weird one, but enjoyable. This is a monster movie, where the monster is very clearly depicted, instead of only showing it in a few scenes, or just showing parts of it.
The tone of this film is a mix of comedy, horror, drama. A very difficult mix of genres, but I thought it worked well. The horror/tension obviously comes from the monster, these scenes are not splatter horror, they are very well done tense scenes that don’t really show much gore.
The comedy is based on the absurdity of the family at the center of the story. A little girl is captured by the monster, her father is a bit retarded which brings a lot of funny scenes. The granpa, aunt and uncle all have their own quirks. The best scene is when all of them are cyring in the gym. Hilarious stuff!
Amidst all the comedy there is also drama, the little girl is still trapped in the monster’s hiding place.
This is a really entertaining movie, if you’re not put off by ugly looking monsters, I’d recommend this.
Rating: 3.5 Stars