Reviewer's Rating 4 out of 5 Ìý User Rating 4 out of 5
The Host (2006)
15Contains strong language and moderate horror

Action, slapstick, and melodrama lurk alongside whip-smart horror shocks in Bong Joon-ho's delicious creature flick The Host. Dim-witted Park Gang-du works on his father's food stand by the Han river. The life of the Parks, and the city, are turned upside down when a bus-sized mutant emerges from the waters and sets about hundreds of screaming Seoulites. Effortlessly comic, delightfully extreme, and echoing Jaws, Alien and Godzilla along the way, The Host is a monster.

In the bloody, spectacular riverside chaos, Gang-du's pre-teen daughter Hyun-seo is carried off in the creature's jaws. Regurgitated in the monster's bone-strewn lair, she calls her grieving father from her cell phone - triggering his and the rest of the family's wild attempts to find her. The Korean and US governments, though, in a confusion of cover-up, casual sadism and an astutely observed post-SARS and 9/11 institutional panic, have other ideas.

"WILL KEEP YOU ON YOUR TOES"

A couple of lower-grade effects shots aside, the film looks wonderful - particularly the initial daylight catastrope - while the signature Korean genre-twisting will keep everyone on their toes. The cast sell their characters' cruel and extraordinary tale with verve, and the monster - brought to weighty and menacing life by the effects teams behind Lord Of The Rings and Babe - is a memorably deadly addition to the creature hall of fame.

End Credits

Director: Bong Joon-ho

Writer: Baek Chul-hyun, Bong Joon-ho, Ha Jun-won

Stars: Song Kang-ho, Byeon Hie-bong, Park Hae-il, Bae Du-na, Ko Ah-Sung, David Joseph Anselmo

Genre: Action, Comedy, Drama, Fantasy, Horror, Thriller

Length: 120 minutes

Cinema: 10 November 2006

Country: South Korea

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