Film Review: GWOEMUL a.k.a THE HOST (2006) D: Joon-Ho Bong
First let me start out by saying the trailers and previews for this film were amazing when I saw them. I’ve been trying to see this film seen I saw the trailer three months ago. I got it the first day it came on DVD. Needless to say, I had high expectations.
Well, it let me down. Big time. I was really disappointed. Everything I’ve seen and been hearing about the film, even now after I’ve seen it, is how this is such a great “monster movie” and how it’s one of the best “horror films”. All that’s bull shit. First of all it’s not a “monster movie”. It’s a creature feature. Straight out of the fifties’ Big Bug movies and government experiments gone wrong. Just like GODZILLA. Another Asian creation. In fact it is incredibly similar to GODZILLA. I don’t understand why this particular film has been getting so much great publicity. Yes, there were great special effects. Yes, the mutation did look pretty cool.
The first time you see the mutation, when it’s just hanging there and all the people are looking at it talking about what it could be. Then, it moves suddenly and jumps in the water. The first thing it reminded me of was ALIEN. I got extremely excited. Unfortunately, that was the apex of my excitement for the whole film.
This film is an integration of a variety of genres that range from horror to comedy to fantasy to drama and so on. However, I personally like horror films to have a level of seriousness and sincerity to it otherwise it looses it’s appeal and can make it seem campy and silly. Thus, not gaining a maximum entertainment value based on fear and being scared. Which is the essence of a Horror film. This film fluctuates so much from that it’s hard to gage what emotion you as an audience member are trying to feel. For example, the funeral seen. First the name of the scene kind of tells you that it’s going to be serious and heart-felt. Guess again. Humorous. Distastefully so. I understand the difference between horror and comedy. And that if you can make someone laugh at a situation you can also make them get scared just as easily. That’s the beauty about blending comedy and horror. I just feel that it was not done well in THE HOST.
Another thing I notice with THE HOST, and with many Asian films, is a loss of translation. I don’t understand why in a lot of Asian films they turn to comedy to alleviate the tension in a scene instead of trying to take it to the next level. They bring it back down with comedy. It’s like that in some horror flick and just about any martial arts films and a bunch of action films as well. Let’s say they just need to stick to what kind of film they’re trying to make. If it’s a horror film you don’t want to make it silly. There were a number of scenes like that in THE HOST, and I just don’t understand why. I hate to be the ignorant American, but maybe it’s Asian-thing. There’s obviously a cultural difference. Maybe that applies a great deal to filmmaking.
I won’t mention much about all the anti-American undertones throughout the film. I’ll just say they’re definitely there. So don’t be offended. And honestly I had absolutely no problem with it. Especially, since the opening scene in the film actually happened. For more info on that check out http://imdb.com/title/tt0468492/trivia.
With all that being said. I did enjoy many parts of the film. Every creature scene is worth watching. I like the story of Park Gung-du and his daughter Hyun-seo. The containment/hospital scenes are cheesy and campy. And the whole story falls apart when the family disbands. The final battle scene is pretty good. That’s one of the scenes that has no humor and it was handled well. The score was often inappropriate. Overall I would recommend checking it out. After all, we all have different taste. I’m just a huge Horror movie fan and THE HOST it let me down.
Rating = 5.4/10
