Gang-du (SONG Kang-ho) works at a food-stand on the banks of the Han River. Dozing on the job, he is awakened by his daughter, Hyun-seo ( KO A-sung), who is angry with him for missing a teacher-parent meeting at school. As Gang-du walks out to the riverbank with a delivery, he notices that a large crowd of people has gathered, taking pictures and talking about something hanging from the Han River Bridge. The otherwise idyllic landscape turns suddenly to bedlam when a terrifying creature climbs up onto the riverbank and begins to crush and eat people. Gang-du and his daughter run for their lives but suddenly the thing grabs Hyun-seo and disappears back into the river. The government announces that the thing apparently is the Host of an unidentified virus. Having feared the worst, Gang-du receives a phone call from his daughter who is frightened, but very much alive. Gang-du makes plans to infiltrate the forbidden zone near the Han River to rescue his daughter from the clutches of the horrifying Host...
I try to not write up little blurbs on movies I've watched in relation to school, but it's always nice to be able to look up what films/dramas I have watched and what I thought about them at the time if I ever do want to know. So, here I am. I didn't quite watch this specifically for my South Korean Pop Culture and Media class, but it is on the list of films I could watch and do my second paper on. I didn't have too many expectations when I agreed to watch it (I had just finished studying for the night at my friend's place and we decided to celebrate by watching a movie - this movie) except how I was informed how it was a "horror" film. In theory, I suppose it is. Once I watched it, I had no idea how to categorize it. The movie was done in a way where all of the people within it seemed incompetent - the people because they're always idiots when it comes to monster movies and the [American] doctors/pathologists because perhaps the movie was trying to say something (turns out it was). This serious lack of brain cells made me want to just let the monster roam free and have at everyone, but besides that one complaint from me, it was fairly entertaining.
I liked how the main characters was made up of an ordinary family who could have been more extraordinary and used their brains - but didn't. I liked the creature which was rather adorable, then again, I have a strange sense of what's cute and what isn't; the effects were pretty good as well. I was sure that the entire film could have been poking at the incompetence of several groups of people, or was a sort of satire, which was pretty neat - in this sense, the film wasn't completely lacking within the intelligence department. Overall, however, there was only a handful of moments where you might have been startled but for the most part, I wouldn't have considered it a horror film. I just couldn't stop thinking about how the opening scene would be a huge nightmare for environmentalists and animal lovers alike. All in all, although most people seemed to love the movie, I have to say that I didn't love it, nor did I hate it.
I have to give them one thing: that family's pretty resilient and the ending scene was somewhat touching.
My friend had Netflix so I didn't have to search for this online - so sorry, no link. :/
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