It’s a bright sunny day in Seoul and the park overlooking the Han River is teeming with people enjoying a day out with their family. The Park family have a house and food stall right near the park, ideal for making money. The good for nothing lazy son Gang Du is sleeping on duty whilst the grandfather Hie-bong and Gang Du’s teenage daughter Hyun-seo are watching their relative Nam Joo on television trying to win an archery competition. A crowd starts to gather near the banks of the Han River. Gang Du now awake goes down to see what the commotion is all about. A large dark object is seen hanging down from the bridge crossing the river. As the crowd starts to speculate what the object is, it starts to move and falls down in to the river. Suddenly the creature rears its ugly head from the river and starts attacking people in the park. A blind panic ensues as the crowd scatter to escape with many people taken by the creature. Unaware of what’s going on, Hyun-seo goes outside of the family’s house only to see people running away. Her father grabs her and they both dash off only to fall. Not looking, Gang Du grabs the nearest hands near to him and run again only to realise it’s not his daughter’s hand he’s holding. When he turns around, Hyun-seo is standing in the distance with the beast bearing down on her. It takes her and heads for the river before diving down to the depths.
Hyon-seo doesn’t die in the attack and manages to place a weak call on her mobile phone from the lair of the beast which is in one of the city’s sewers. The Park family with the aid of a sewer map look one by one in each one, hoping that Hyun-seo is in one of them. Will they manage to locate Hyun-seo? How can the authorities stop and destroy the creature before it kills many more people?
This fantastic creature feature really impressed me but I just didn’t know if it was meant to be a serious movie or a tongue in cheek one. You get a bit of everything whilst watching it – from terror to humour and suspense. It even provides several ‘jump out of your seat’ moments which I was not expecting at all. The story borrows a bit from previous monster flicks with the opening moments seeing some doctors at a morgue pouring large amounts of toxic chemicals down the plug hole into the Han River. You just know that some kind of mutant is expected to be born from such a cocktail. The creature itself is quite a weird looking one and I can’t really describe it that well. Let’s just say to me it looked like a giant catfish with feet. The special effects depicting the creature are top notch.
As for the cast, 14 year old debutant Ah-sung Ko who plays Hyun-seo has a great future in the movie business. She takes on the strong character of Hyun-seo and gives a very convincing performance. I thought she was superb and I look forward to seeing what she does next. The Host is a slick sharp monster movie which is played out in a unique way combining human drama, horror and comedy. Seek this gem out and prepare to be surprised.
Sadako’s Rating: 4.5 out of 5
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