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Monster of a flick
THE HOST
Directed by Bong Joon-ho
Certificate 15
TO criticise this film harshly is like tripping over a toddler. It is too easy.
The plot is ridiculous and the characters unbelievable. But lets face it – this is a monster flick, and it pushes all the buttons you’d expect from such an offering.
And I learnt a valuable lesson. Never tip toxic waste down plugholes – much better to try and dispose of such fluids in a responsible manner.
The creature – the star of this show – is a flesh devouring mutant that resides in the Han river, in Seoul, the capital of South Korea.
Created when scientists tipped goo down a drain, it has a bone to pick with humans.
It starts to terrorise the city, and gets away with it until it saunters up to a riverside cafe and finds itself a frightened little girl.
We meet lazy bones Kang-du (Kang-ho Song) who works with his father at their kiosk. They have little time for each other, or the rest of their family of Nam-il (Hae-il Park) and Nam-Ju (Du-na Bae).
The youngest, Hyun-seo (Ah-sung Ko) is the apple of the family’s eye – so imagine their horror when the beast rises from the murky depths and makes off with her.
But rather than stick out a slimy claw and eat her as it does with the rest of the humans it comes across, it decides to kidnap her instead. Wrong move.
When she manages to call home to say she has survived but is stuck in a sewer, this hugely dysfunctional family group set out on a hunt to find her and take revenge.
They are hilarious at times, and occasionally appear to be the Royle family’s Korean cousins. With it, they become one of the best gang of unlikely heroes I have come across for some time.
But while with other monster flicks, such as Godzilla, King Kong and the beasts in Jurassic Park, you are meant to feel a little sorry for the killer muncher on the loose, the Han River beastie conjures up little sympathy.
While with King Kong it’s the humans who are at fault for antagonising him, in The Host, the slimy creature is unpleasant and you find yourself firmly rooting for Nam-Ju’s family.
This is perfect B-movie material, with moments of gore interspersed with moments of slapstick nonsense. |
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