A new creature from the black lagoon|The South Korean horror comedy “The Host” climbs out of the sewer sporting some impressive hype.
It’s the most popular homemade South Korean film ever, selling 13 million tickets there in a population of about 48 million. To put it in perspective, a U.S. movie would have to do about $700 million at the box office to reach an audience of the same proportions.
But don’t expect a best-picture candidate. Most popular doesn’t usually translate to most accomplished. “The Host” is at best a well-made entertainment mixing drama with humor, with enough populist touches to endear itself to audiences – kind of like the U.S. box office champ, “Titanic,” actually. So we can relate.
“The Host” starts off with an intentional anti-U.S. jab, based on a real incident from a few years back. A military coroner at the U.S. Army base in South Korea orders his local assistant to pour hundreds of bottles of old formaldehyde down the nearest sink. The hapless aide protests, but is ordered to proceed. As the toxic liquid steams itself down the drain, we fade to a daytime shot of the Han River and two men fishing. This can’t end well.
Nearby, a despairing salaryman jumps off a bridge. Whether he becomes the monster or is eaten by the monster is never clear, but this won’t end well, either.
Cut to the usual horror-movie introduction of our everyday heroes. Gang-du (Song Kang-ho) is a dim-witted adult falling asleep at his father’s snack stand near the river. His daughter (Go Ah-Sung) comes home from school, and they watch Auntie Nam-Joo (Du-na Bae) in a national archery competition on TV.
Will archery skills come in handy against the beast? Did Godzilla suffer from halitosis?
The fishy beast soon emerges from the river and kidnaps the schoolgirl. Like all B-grade creature films, the low-budget special effects force the filmmakers to leaven the proceedings with slapstick humor, since no one could take all this too seriously. The amphibian protagonist is about the size of a hummer and looks like a carp on steroids, semi-evolved with legs and a three-tiered jaw structure.
The bickering family – grandpa, hapless son, archer auntie, angry brother – must go on sewer safari and find their beloved Hyun-Seo. Meanwhile, the government is worse than ineffective, and the U.S. military makes a few more egregious mistakes.
Writer-director Bong Joon-ho keeps things moving and keeps it light, tossing in more threatened children for sympathy. Despite the pokes at America, he doesn’t try to make the beast sympathetic, a carp-clown crying on the inside. Korean legend dictates that any animal that kills a human must be destroyed mercilessly, and the searchers agree on that.
Don’t expect many chills. “The Host” has far more in common with the Japanese monster flicks than the recent flood of terrific Asian horror films. Still, it’s more than an international oddity, and when Hollywood hands Joon-ho a $50 million budget, he’ll take a bite out of the U.S. box office, as well.
Staff writer Michael Booth can be reached at 303-954-1686 or at mbooth@denverpost.com.
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“The Host”
R for typical monster-movie violence, some gore, profanity|1 hour, 59 minutes|MONSTER-HORROR|Directed by Bong Joon-ho, written by Joon-ho and Baek Chul-hyun, in Korean with English subtitles; starring Park Gang-Du, Go Ah-Sung, Park Hee-Bong and Du-na Bae|Opens today at Landmark’s Mayan Theater.
