The Host (2006)

continued...

... a very funny overdramatic cry over the dead Hyun-seo. Men show up in bio-containment suits and demand that anyone at the riverside during the occurrence and anyone having contact with these people are to come with them immediately. During their quarantine Gang-Du's cell phone rings in the middle of the night. It's a call from Hyun-seo. He can barely hear her, but she says she doesn't know where she is and she's alive.

Hyun-seo is in fact alive. She's trapped in a very deep drainage pit in a sewer. It's too tall for her to get out. The monster is bringing his swallowed food supply here and regurgitating the swallowed bodies onto the sewer floor for later digestion. Eeew.

The remaining Park family bands together for the rescue of Hyun-seo. They bust out of quarantine and search all of the sewers in the Han River area. In one of the most touching moments in the film, the family sits to have a hasty meal before continuing their search and as they eat a ghost of Hyun-seo appears who they feed out of guilt that she maybe starving to death as they feed themselves. Sadly they find the creature who quickly kills their father for shooting at it. The family is once again disbanded and it seems all hope is lost.

The government has announced that a virus is being spread by those who have come in contact with the creature, and Gang-Du is going to be experimented on. Nam-il, contacts a friend to help him triangulate the cell signal so he can find Hyan-seo's location. Nam-Joo grabs her bow and arrow and continues her search for her niece and comes pretty close but is knocked into a deep pit by the creature before she has the chance. Hyan-seo discovers a new regurgitated companion in the sewer pit and she tries to find a way for both of them to escape, but ends up getting both of them swallowed by the monster. Korean officials have decided to dump an American made chemical near the river called Agent Yellow to destroy the monster, and once again the Park family has found one another just in time to defeat the monster and hopefully save Hyun-seo.

"The Host" is a brilliant monster comedy. Some of the most stunning scenes are the CGI effects of the monster running after crowds of people. It kinda makes you long for a GOOD Godzilla remake. For the most part it's a charming comic story about a disenfranchised family that finds each other through the destruction of a fish mutant. Try and put that on a movie poster. You can get a dubbed English version on DVD if you like, but I would recommend seeing the film with it's original language and subtitles, something always seems kinda phony in the dubs i've seen. Maybe this will ring in a new trend of monster films. Since they're done stomping Tokyo, the monsters I mean, maybe Korea is next.

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