The Host (2.5 out of 5 stars)

The Host is a Korean tale about a monster that terrorizes a community, and thus fits with the Asian monster movie genre. An American scientist orders his Korean employee to dispose of at least 50 bottles of formaldahyde into the river Han. The toxic chemicals end up creating a mutated amphibious fish creature that is roughly the size of a large bus that goes on a killing spree one nice afternoon eating dozens of picknickers. In the process, the youngest member of a family is stolen away by the monster. The rest of the movie is about this family attempting to get her back.

The movie seems to be more than just a monster movie. The Americans have created, through their irresponsibility, a monster enemy that terrorizes Korea. But, to make matters worse, the American government then declares that the monster is the carrier of a deadly virus, and order various biochemical agents dropped on it, as well as quarantine everyone who had been in close proximity to the monster. We eventually learn the Americans have made this part up, and that there is no virus. The critique seems to be that America has created its own enemies, and now rather than fight that enemy head on, uses the existence of the enemy to create a phantom enemy through propaganda. You could probably read the Iraq war into this, if you tried, or the Axis of evil powers that included North Korea. It seems to be a more generic idea, though, so it doesn't quite fit just one American situation, as much as it seems to describe a pattern of American foreign and domestic policy, that includes environmental pollution.

But the movie is mainly a monster movie, and as a monster movie, it has its pluses and minuses. The monster is shown running along the river, in broad daylight, towards a crowd of people, knocking them aside and eating them as he runs. That was fairly terrible in its own way. And the few times we see the monster, it is interesting. But most of the movie is devoted to the family, their agony, their mission to rescue the youngest daughter/niece/granddaughter, and how the mission transforms them from selfish, bumbling misfits, to courageous heroes. So why didn't I like the movie? I didn't like the movie because it seemed too slow in places where it should've picked up the pace, and I never found the story of the monster all that exciting to begin with. The political commentary was interesting, and original, and fit with the Asian monster movie tradition of using the monster as a metaphor for global fear (Godzilla, for instance is traditionally believed to be a collective response to Japanese worries and concerns about nuclear power and Hiroshima). But I nonetheless found myself bored 1/3 to 1/2 the time. Maybe under different circumstances, I would've liked it, but my first viewing, I found it boring.