| Product: |
Gwoemul (DVD) |
| Date: |
05.04.07 (202 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: A fun reminder of old school monster movies
Disadvantages: Thehumns are not that interesting
Korean movie making is becoming well known over here as the studios search for the newest Far East market to export movies from. There has been a large number of extremely good ones that have arrived on our shores, the director of The Host’s previous one ‘Memories of Murder’ amongst them.
The Host is a monster movie in the old 30’s & 40’s style but with elements of family drama, political comment and smatterings of outrageous comedy that often seem totally out of place. This is kind of strange as the strangeness of the comedy actually makes the weird occurrences going on elsewhere seem more normal and realistic. For example one scene very near the beginning has the main characters, a father, his 2 sons and his daughter, mourning the death of another family member, rolling on the floor crying out loud. In an incongruous moment a police official walks in and calls out a registration number of a vehicle with increasing insistence wanting it to be moved. This doesn’t sound funny but it is the whole surreal aspect of it that makes you laugh!
The Host is almost a homage to the old Godzilla movies, it begins with an American army officer disposing of some chemicals illegally into the Han river. This causes mutations in a creature and leads to the creation of a large monster that looks like a cross between a giant tadpole and the deadly Alien from the movie series of the same name.
The action starts almost immediately as a crowd of people spot an odd shape hanging from a bridge, as they gaze at it with incredulous looks the creature moves. It swings from the bridge structure, lands on solid ground and charges at the crowds watching, wreaking havoc all around it.
As suddenly as it appears the creature vanishes, taking ‘food’ with it and leaving a scene of devastation.
The rest of the movie is taken up with the search for the creature. The Americans, the local authorities and the main family all attempting to find it, and all for their own reasons and all putting a different slant on the storyline. The family brings out the family drama side, with the concentration on the strength of the family unit and how family matters more than anything else and the Americans involvement brings in a sharp political side to it, condemning their involvement in other countries affairs.
The mix of styles makes The Host an unusual film to watch, it switches its focus so often that it sometimes is hard to grasp hold of what it wants to tell you, what it is trying to say. Still it is an enjoyable film in it’s own little way and is certainly worth seeing.
The CGI for the monster is pretty good, the tadpole/dinosaur look to it is quite realistic, it moves in an animal way and for the majority of its screen time it doesn’t jar at all. The creature is the star of the film, at least for western audiences, who would not have a clue as to who any of the actors in it are. The actors in The Host are all good but none of them particularly stand out in my opinion, not enough for me to search out the next film they are in anyway. Though this could be down to the script as they have very thinly sketched characters (maybe they are caricatures of some kind that Koreans would recognise?) and they have little to do outside of advancing the plot.
The pleasure of The Host though is that there is little wasted time and space. The story cracks along at a fast pace and does keep you interested enough to wonder what is going to happen next which sometimes is all you want in a movie.
Horror, comedy, thrills and political comment all mix effortlessly in a film that will never be called great but sure is an awful lot of fun to watch. The Host is a monster movie that doesn’t have, or want I think, to be taken seriously, even if some of the points in it should be!
Summary: A giant monster terrories Seoul
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