The Host (2006 film)

2006 South Korean monster film

The Host (hangul=괴물) is a 2006 South Korean epic monster film directed and co written by Bong Joon ho. Starring Song Kang ho, Byun Hee bong, Park Hae il, Bae Doona and Go Ah sung, it tells the story of a monster that kidnaps a man's daughter, and his attempts to rescue her. In 2000, Bong began conceptualizing a new monster movie inspired by a widely reported scandal, in which an American commanded his Korean employees to dispose of formaldehyde down a drain, which ended up in the Han River. He proposed the film roughly two years later and started writing the script with Ha Joon won in 2003; Baek Chul hyun joined the pair to revise scripting for the film in December 2004. The film was shot on a budget of ($11 million), with most sequences filmed on location near the Han River. New Zealand company Wētā Workshop modeled the film's creature and the American studio The Orphanage handled its visual effects. The Host premiered on a record number of screens in its home country on July 27, 2006, and became the highest grossing South Korean film in history upon its release. The film obtained critical acclaim, grossed US$90 million worldwide, and won several awards, including Best Film at the Asian Film Awards and the Blue Dragon Film Awards. Thus, a sequel and American remake were put forward, but neither ultimately ever came to fruition.

In 2000, an American military pathologist orders his Korean assistant to dump 200 bottles of formaldehyde down a drain leading into the Han River. Over the next several years, there are sightings of a strange amphibious creature in the waterway, and the fish in the river die off. In 2006, a slow witted man named Park Gang du runs a small snack bar in a park near the river with his father, Hee bong. Other family members are Gang du's daughter, Hyun seo; his sister Nam joo, a national medalist archer; and his brother, Nam il, an alcoholic college graduate and former political activist. A huge creature emerges from the Han River and begins attacking people leaving many of them dead. Gang du tries to grab his daughter from the crowd and run, but he realizes he has grabbed the wrong person's hand and sees the creature snatching away Hyun seo and diving back into the river. After a mass funeral for the victims, government representatives and the American military arrive and quarantine people who had contact with the creature, including Gang du and his family. It is announced that the creature is the host of a deadly, unknown virus. Gang du receives a phone call from Hyun seo. She explains that she is trapped in the sewers with the creature, but her phone stops working. Gang du and his family escape the hospital and purchase supplies from gangsters in order to search for Hyun seo. Two homeless boys, Se jin and Se joo, after raiding Hee bong's snack bar for food, are attacked and swallowed by the creature. It returns to its sleeping area in the sewer and regurgitates them, but only Se joo is alive. Hyun seo helps Se joo hide inside a drain pipe where the creature cannot reach them. The Parks encounter the creature and shoot at it until they run out of ammunition. The creature kills Hee bong due to Gang du miscalculating the remaining shells in his shotgun when he gives it to Hee bong. Gang du is captured by the Army and Nam il and Nam joo become separated from each other. Nam il meets an old friend, Fat Guevara, at an office building to ask for help and learns the government has placed a bounty on his family. Unbeknownst to Nam il, Fat Guevara has contacted the government so he can claim the bounty, but Nam il is able to escape after obtaining Hyun seo's location. Gang du overhears an American scientist say that there is no virus; it was made up to distract people from the creature's origin. They decide to lobotomize Gang du to silence him. When she thinks the creature is sleeping, Hyun seo tries to escape from its lair using a rope she has made from old clothes. The creature awakes and swallows Hyun seo and Se joo. Gang du succeeds in escaping from where he is being held by taking a nurse hostage. Nam il meets a homeless man who helps him. The government announces a plan to release a toxic chemical called Agent Yellow into the river to attempt to kill the creature. Gang du finds the creature and sees Hyun seo's arm dangling out of its mouth. He chases it to the location where Agent Yellow is to be released, coming across Nam joo along the way. The creature attacks the large crowd that has assembled to protest the chemical dump. Agent Yellow is released, which stuns the creature. Gang du pulls Hyun seo out of its mouth, but she is dead, though she is still clutching Se joo, who is unconscious, but alive. Gang du, enraged at his daughter's death, attacks the creature, aided by Nam il, Nam joo, and the homeless man. They set it on fire and Gang du impales it with a pole, finally killing it. As they mourn for Hyun seo, Gang du revives Se joo. Some time later, it is seen that Gang du has inherited his father's snack bar and adopted Se joo. While watching the river, he hears a noise and picks up a bolt action rifle to investigate, but finds nothing. He and Se joo have a meal together, ignoring a news broadcast stating that the aftermath of the incident was due to misinformation.

In 2000, filmmaker Bong Joon ho got the idea of creating a monster movie, taking inspiration from a widely reported scandal, in which an American named Albert McFarland ordered his Korean employees to dispose of formaldehyde down a drain, which ended up in the Han River. Bong proposed the film roughly two years later and started writing the script with Ha Joon won in 2003; Baek Chul hyun joined the pair to revise scripting for the film in December 2004. (just over $10 million), huge by local industry standards. Due to his second film's success, The Host was highly anticipated.

Some of the filming took place in the real sewers near the Han River, rather than on a set. The stars and crew were inoculated against tetanus by the medical officer. During filming, the crew had to deal with the effects of changes in weather and ambient temperature. This including the sewage water freezing in cold temperatures, so that it had to be broken up and melted; and during hot and windy periods, the water evaporated and the silt turned to dust, which blew around in the breeze and into the faces of the crew.

The director had to work around the budget imposed restrictions, especially when it came to special effects. The creature was designed by Chin Wei chen, the modeling was done by New Zealand based Weta Workshop and the animatronics were by John Cox's creature Workshop. The CGI for the film was done by The Orphanage, which also did some of the visual effects in The Day After Tomorrow. The monster was designed with some specific characteristics in mind. According to the director himself, the inspiration came from a local article about a deformed fish with an S shaped spine caught in the Han River. Therefore, the director's wishes were for it to look like an actual mutated fish like creature, rather than having a more fantastical design. In the opening scenes of the film, two fishermen presumably encounter the creature whilst it is still small enough to fit in one of their cups; suggestive of its humble, more realistic origins. The monster also exhibits frontal limbs similar to amphibians' legs. This element of its design seems to have been more a choice of functionality on the designers' part as the monster needed to be able to run and perform certain acrobatic movements during the film.

The film was in part inspired by an incident in 2000, in which a Korean mortician working for the U. S. military in Seoul reported that he was ordered to dump a large amount of formaldehyde down the drain. In addition to environmental concerns, this caused some antagonism toward the United States. In the film, the American military stationed in South Korea is portrayed as uncaring about the effects their activities have on the locals. The chemical agent used by the American military to combat the monster in the end, named "Agent Yellow" in a thinly veiled reference to Agent Orange, was also used to satirical effect. Because of its themes, which can be seen as critical of the United States, the film was lauded by North Korean authorities, a rarity for a South Korean blockbuster film. The film features a satirical portrayal of the South Korean government as bureaucratic, inept, and essentially uncaring. Korean youth protesters are featured satirically in the film, in a mixed way, partially heroic and partially self righteous and oblivious. According to Bong Joon ho, the Park Nam il character is a deliberate anachronism, a reference to South Korea's troubled political history, which involved violent protest. "When you look in terms of this character, it's sort of like the feeling of time going backwards. [ ] You could say that he is the image of the college protester back ten years ago; it doesn't exist in the present day."

The film was released theatrically in Australia on August 17, 2006. During the first half of September 2006, it premiered in Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Hong Kong. It received a theatrical release in the United Kingdom on November 10, 2006. This was its first official release outside of film festivals, and outside Asia and Australia. Its American release was March 9, 2007. It was also released in France, Ireland, Sweden, Germany, and Spain, amongst other countries. The Host received screenings on several film festivals. In addition to its opening in Cannes, among the most prominent were the Toronto, Tokyo and New York film festivals. The film swept Korea's Blue Dragon Awards : The Host received five awards, Go Ah sung took Best New Actress and Byun Hee bong was awarded Best Supporting Actor.

The region 2 UK edition of the film was released on March 5, 2007, while the region 1 US DVD was released on July 24, 2007, in both single disc and a two disc collector's edition in DVD, HD DVD and Blu ray Disc formats.

The Host premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on May 21, 2006 and was released nationally in South Korea on July 27, 2006. Having been heavily promoted and featuring one of the most popular leading actors in the country, Song Kang ho, the film was released on a record number of screens and made the South Korean record books with its box office performance during its opening weekend. The 2.63 million admissions and $17.2 million box office revenue easily beat the previous records set by Typhoon. The film reached six million viewers on August 6, 2006. In early September, the film became South Korea's all time box office leader, selling more than 12.3 million tickets in just over a month in a country of 48.5 million. By the end of its run on November 8, the viewing figures came in at 13,019,740. In addition, it was ranked one of the top films of 2007 on Metacritic, with a score of 85 out of 100 based on 35 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". The French film magazine Cahiers du cinéma ranked the film as 3rd place in its list of best films of the year 2006 and 4th for the 2000–2009 decade. The Japanese film magazine Kinema Junpo selected it as one of the top 10 best foreign films of the year 2006. (Flags of Our Fathers won the best foreign film of the year 2006.) Manohla Dargis of The New York Times wrote "The Host is a loopy, feverishly imaginative genre hybrid about the demons that haunt us from without and within." In 2009, filmmaker Quentin Tarantino included it in his list of top 20 films released since 1992 (the year he became a director). The film was also listed at #81 on Empires list of The 100 Best Films of World Cinema.

In June 2007, it was announced that a follow up to the film, entitled The Host 2 (hangul=괴물2), was in progress, with a different director. The following year, the budget for The Host 2 was announced at close to $12 million, and would be based on a script by webcomic artist Kang Full. Test footage for The Host 2, featuring famed actor Kwak Do won, However, in 2019, South Korean film magazine Cine21 declared that The Host 2 was "completely canceled".

In November 2008, it was announced that Universal Studios would be remaking The Host with Gore Verbinski producing, Mark Poirier writing the script, and first time director Fredrik Bond directing the film. The film was set for a 2011 release. However, the production has remained in so called "development hell".

Twitch Film announced on November 3, 2009 that a video game was planned, to be released as a multi platform first person shooter. As of April 2021, no game had been released and it is assumed to be vaporware.