14
The “Monster”
from Gwoemul [literally, Monster; aka The Host]
(South Korea-2006; dir. Joon-ho Bong)
The Han River is very broad, Mr. Kim. Let’s try to be broad-minded about this. Anyway, that’s an order. So, start pouring.
Pollution in the Han river in Korea causes mutation. Before too long (like in the first five minutes of the movie) a monstrous freak rears its ugly head. The creature appears to be a giant mutant tadpole crossed with a coelocanth. It quickly discovers a new favourite food source in the human population. Unlike many of the entries on this list, The Host (a title which offers an ironic comment on certain of the film’s themes) is generally considered one of the best giant monster movies to appear for many decades. It won 18 or so cinema awards and broke all box-office records in its home country. A sequel is in production.
I found this rather nice painting as well, though I was unable to determine who painted it as the link was broken. (If anyone knows, please contact me so that I can credit it.)
And finally, here is the trailer:
And here’s a longish sequence from the film, showing the monster’s first appearance:
Coming in a day or two: Kaiju Search-Robot Avery’s Top 20 Craziest Kaiju Countdown Number 13!
Top 20 Craziest Kaiju Countdown articles:
- Kaiju Search-Robot Avery’s Introduction
- Number 20: The Monolith Monsters
- Number 19: The Giant Claw
- Number 18: Dogora
- Number 17: The Trollenberg Terror
- Number 16: Rectuma
- Number 15: The Outlander
I love this Korean reinvention of the monster-flick, especially that the monster is the secondary focus of the movie, with the characters taking centre stage with some ultra-realistic acting and a script that has a lot of good things to say. Let’s home the USA doesn’t remake this one and stuff it up. I think this film is about being South Korean as much anything and that strength would be lost in translation and dilution by Hollywood.
I couldn’t agree with you more, Terry. There has been talk of a US remake, but not for some time — so maybe they’ve decide that removing the Korean elements and making it more “Hollywood” would make it just another generic monster movie. Not that such considerations ever stop them…
Too right. It’s like having a perfectly good car which purrs like a kitten and moves like a bullet and deciding to make a car out of plastic, duct tape and old car seats from outside a redneck’s house, powering it with a lawn-mower engine then calling it a “reimagining” of the original car.
It was recently announced, by the original director,that the remake is going ahead and has a director and screen writer.That and the sequel.In an interview here: http://www.kweb.be/ekran/renkontre-avec-bong-joonho It was bound to happen.
It was bound to happen? Yes, unfortunately. Maybe it means that Hollywood will leave the French alone for a while and not remake their comedies (badly) until around 2015.
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