‘The Host’ Exhibiting Off Its Kaiju in Broad Daylight Is Nonetheless a Enormous Flex Price Celebrating

A broadly understood trademark in modern monster movies is that you simply don’t showcase your creature in broad daylight. We’ve seen this phenomenon in Gareth Edwards’ lukewarm Godzilla and Guillermo del Toro’s kick-ass Pacific Rim (which, famously, never got a sequel). In adherence to this unwritten rule, the latter vexes by cloaking its mechs and kaiju in darkness, including to their cool issue by having their distinct silhouettes loom imposingly. The previous frustrates with a feature-length tease, too gun-shy to truly present the large monsters combating in all their glory with out obscuring the gargantuan particulars.  Hardly ever, whether or not in good or dangerous monster movies, do filmmakers make the daring option to reveal their creatures outright in broad daylight. Then once more, not each filmmaker is Bong Joon Ho.

What’s radical concerning the Academy Award-winning director’s 2006 monster film, The Host, is that it wastes no time serving its dessert earlier than dinner by answering each query one may have about its titular kaiju within the opening moments of the movie. We get a breezy opening about some docs, one among whom is a pre-Strolling Useless Scott Wilson, and their wanton medical malpractice: dumping a bunch of formaldehyde into the Han River (one thing that truly occurred in actual life). What comes of it’s a mutant tadpole that rampages on some unsuspecting beachgoers making an attempt to have a stunning afternoon. It’s utter chaos. However amid the pandemonium, Bong doesn’t simply have the creature mindlessly rampage about as each different kaiju does. He establishes the fish-like beast and its toolkit of monstrous attributes.

The nightmarish axolotl creature, simply as harmful on land as at sea, is armed with brutish power, a dagger-like prehensile tail, and a gaping maw. It crawls at a brisk tempo, however when searching or making a tactical retreat, it makes use of that tail to swing underneath bridges like monkey bars earlier than swan-diving again into the river to drown victims it drags again to its sewer hovel. In a single quick scene, Bong establishes the creature as a palpable risk that refuses to obey a curfew, whereas additionally including a layer of thriller to its “kill the whole lot that strikes” psychology. It’s equal components King Kong and Godzilla, localized right into a compact bundle. Extra importantly, it’s a kick-ass creature construct.

One other strike in opposition to most monster motion pictures is that they have an inclination to fail at making their human characters as attention-grabbing as their creatures. The Host is a glowing exception to that. That’s not as a result of its characters are superpowered oddities, a part of a hypercapable militia, or a whiny group of sods you possibly can’t wait to see chunk the mud. They make you care as a result of they’re a palpably fallible, relatable, dysfunctional household weathering this storm.

There’s the failed son, Park Gang-du (Track Kang-ho); his dutiful but unprosperous salaryman brother, Park Nam-il (Park Hae-il); Park Nam-joo (Bae Doona), their soft-spoken archer sister who tends to choke when the chips are down; and Park Hei-bong (Byun Hee-bong), their affected person and nurturing father simply making an attempt to maintain everybody afloat.

They’re all assholes to one another, however they’re the sort of relatable assholes you possibly can take a look at your individual household and see your family members in these vivid spots, blemishes and all. And so they come collectively as a result of they love Gang-du’s daughter, Park Hyun-seo (Go Ah-sung), a woman who simply so occurs to have been kidnapped by the monster and brought to its sewer dwelling. And similar to that, The Host hooks viewers already leaning ahead of their chairs for the creature, leaning even additional ahead to root for this household. They’re out of their depth, particularly with the background American curiosity in messing with South Korea to make use of the environmental catastrophe of a monster it aided in creating, however are decided to rescue the sensible sunspot their household revolves round.

The Host stands as a unicorn of a monster film, firing on all cylinders, daring to make audiences snicker and cry in equal measure. Not like so a lot of its friends, it’s unafraid to parade its creature in broad daylight for all to see. It’s an enormous flex, even all these years later, and a pleasant rarity within the style value celebrating, particularly since its early aughts particular results nonetheless maintain up. That Bong may muster a monster movie—higher but, his first monster movie—with out feeling spinoff of people who got here earlier than it and craft a piece equal components heart-wrenching, horrifying, and goofy, with none one component diluting the others, is downright exceptional.

In a pantheon of monster motion pictures that hardly ever shoot for the moon, The Host manages to have its cake and eat it too: happy with its creature design, but telling a profoundly human story that’s way over only a car for the climactic kaiju cash shot.

The Host is streaming on Hulu.

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