THE HOST DVD Review

Movie
If the U.S. Army has done anything good in the last 60 years, apparently it's been inspiring good monster movies. Similar to how the Lucky Dragon No. 5 incident inspired GODZILLA, the story for THE HOST from the 2000 case of a mortician working for the U.S. military dumping large amounts of formaldehyde into the Han River. Whereas GODZILLA retools the event to fit the context of the story, however, THE HOST recreates the event and posits it as the genesis of the titular creature. When I first watched the film, I was aware of its satire on the presence of the U.S. military, but not knowing of the exact event, the opening struck me as ridiculous and poor satire. A guy dumps gallons of formaldehyde down the drain because the bottles are dusty? Adrian Monk is a fictional character, not a real American. Oops. Although the cultural gap left me questioning certain details about the movie, the themes themselves are universal: the incompetence of governments, the importance of family, and having to sacrifice for what you find important. As most monster movies have government and military protagonists, THE HOST stands out among the genre.

Director Joon-ho Bong takes Spielberg's WAR OF THE WORLDS approach to the film by focusing the story on one of the families that happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Gang-du and his father run a food stand next to the Han River. Gang-du is a lazy bum who sleeps most of the day. Instead of going to his daughter Hyun-seo's Career Day at school, he sends his unemployed, alcoholic brother, Nam-il. Their sister, Nam-joo, is a would-be gold medal archer, who hesitates at the biggest moment, leaving her with a bronze. Meanwhile, the father is just trying to run his honest business. It's all thrown into disarray when the creature attacks bystanders along the river and kidnaps Hyun-seo. When they find out Hyun-seo is still alive, the dysfunctional family must evade the government, who is trying to contain the virus the creature supposedly carries, and save Hyun-seo before she dies.

Because the danger is on such a small scale, THE HOST manages to generate a lot of suspense, even on a repeat viewing. The characters are written as to not be irksome or whiny. They are given the circumstances and deal with them. Certainly, they feel lots of pain throughout the movie, but there are no moments of panicky "I can't do this! I can't do this!" talk. The monster is very-well realized through CGI by WETA and animatronics. Somewhere in between fish and lizard, the monster is ugly but extremely graceful at times, using its prehensile tail to swing down from the undersides of bridges or chuck humans aside like empty soda cans. Its movements and behaviors feel very animal-like. Its almost like a shark or barracuda. It doesn't do much but swim, leap, and eat, but it's terrifyingly powerful. Bong effectively conveys the power of the creature in the initial attack scene, and the knowledge of what it can do helps maintain the suspense.

I'm not sure that the humor and satire work quite as well. The movie throws in a few strange bits of slapstick here and there that are more uncomfortable than anything. There is one scene involving the monster's digestive system that is horrifying and delightful at the same time. The Korean government is portrayed more or less as lackeys of the American military. They take the military's reports of the virus' existence at face value despite an absence of evidence. They let them spray Agent Yellow (thinly veiled, ain't it?) in Seoul despite reports that it kills every living thing within 12 kilometers. It's just that in terms of satire, the effect of the use of Agent Yellow in the climax is unclear. People start coughing up blood and bleeding from their ears, but I'm still confused as to whether they lived or died. Gang-du, meanwhile, is unaffected somehow. I have no idea what that's about. Seo-ri gets mentioned a lot, but I'm not sure why it's at all germane to the story except to add a couple needless characters.

I'm not terribly uncomfortable saying that THE HOST is the best monster movie of the 00's and possibly even further back. The characters are likable and stay involved in the action rather than watching it from a distance, which the size of the monster helps. The monster is extremely well executed, powerful and frightening. The satire and humor is good at times but inconsistent. And that's about the only complaint I might have. If the script were just a bit tighter, this would be a great movie.

DVD
One thing that surprised me about the movie was how good the cinemtography is. Director Bong finds many great compositions for his shots and fills the screen especially well in the action scenes. The colors are slightly desaturated except for yellow (and red in one scene), and the contrast seems to be slightly turned up, creating a series of glossy, striking images. The video quality of the 1.85:1 anamorphic presentation is excellent with deep blacks, good fleshtones, sharp details even in the darkness, and no visible compression artifacts. This movie would simply not be as good without a good visual presentation, and it almost makes me want to upgrade to Blu-ray/HD-DVD to see what I'm still missing.

You get about as good variety as you'd want from the audio tracks. English dub or the original Korean, Dolby 5.1 or 2.0 for both. I listened only to the Korean 5.1. My biggest complaint is that I had trouble hearing exactly what people were saying when they spoke English. It seemed a bit muffled. Otherwise, the audio presentation was fine.

While the standard edition DVD isn't as deep as the collector's edition, you still get a good amount of information about the making of the movie. The director's commentary is overall interesting, filling in some of the cultural details and decision making process involved. At times, though, they start to narrate events without adding information. The deleted scenes run long at 22 minutes for what little they contain. It's amazing how that movie could have come in at a bloated 140 minutes or so. Sort of reminiscent of the GODZILLA 2000 edits. I found the full versions of the fake news broadcasts interesting just because of the effort that had to go into them. It's like those photographs of family moments in movies. They have to go to the trouble of recreating the moments, and I'm sure it takes a fair amount of time and money. And it's all just for a small touch. There's also a short about the director's reflections on the movie, in which he takes some time to apologize to various people involved in the making among other things.

Overall, THE HOST is a very good movie given a very good DVD presentation. Definitely recommended.