New York Dispatch. 7.

At the NYFF, sometimes it's a genre film - a scary movie with laughs - that puts everything back into perspective.

If you thought that South Korea was a resolute ally of the United States, see The Host, the horror thriller by Bong Joon-ho for another view. The film begins with a frightening scene in which an American civilian working for the military orders a Korean subordinate to dump bottles of toxic chemicals down the drain. The chemist objects, since the poison will end up in the Han River, which passes right through Seoul. Soon we see the camera tracking across hundreds of empty bottles, an environmental crisis in the making. It's the future, down the drain. The new Korean Frankenstein's monster is spawned, not by a deranged scientist, but by an arrogant American and by a Korean who followed his command. It calls to mind Godzilla, who was "conceived" in an American nuclear blast at sea. Bear in mind that the version of Godzilla that initially played in the US had the uncomfortable section excised for American audiences.

What's even more frightening about the opening scene is that it's based on actual crimes, for which the American who ordered the dumping of formaldehyde on February 9, 2000, has never been punished. The US initially refused to hand him over to Korea for prosecution, citing a treaty that gibes the US sole jurisdiction over the man, Albert McFarland. Even after he was tried and convicted in absentia, and later tried and convicted by another Korean court in his own presence, McFarland has never served a day in prison. You can thank your government for that. It's a surprise that the North Koreans haven't publicized the crime for propaganda purposes - without playing the film for its own citizens, of course.

In The Host, we soon see the effect of the toxic dumping, a huge amphibious fish-like monster that can swim, run and hold a victim in its tail. The mutant creature (which began as grotesque tadpole) makes his first appearance in downtown Seoul, where the industrious Park family operates a food stand in a riverside park where young people go to drink beer after work. It turns out that the giant fish also has a monstrous appetite. Soon the family is thrust onto the front line of resistance. It's them against the creature, who seems to thrive in the gray habitat of urban rivers, sewers, and in the tunnels where he hides his prey.

Law enforcement, which attempts to fight the monster by spraying another toxin, Agent Yellow, is ineffectual, suggesting a parallel to the government's ineffectiveness in resisting the Americanization that has made South Korea the country that it is today. Once the poison is spilled, its legacy can't be controlled.

Or can it? The Host sometimes has the look of horror films of the 1950s, when monsters of terrifying size terrified citizens who were already straitjacketed into bleak skyscrapers or marooned in harsh and intimidating stretches of concrete. Today's Seoul can look just like those kinds of urban wastelands where residents are up against the wall.

There's not much of a horror tradition in Korean cinema, although Bong Joon-ho, with three features now under his belt, is a fan who has educated himself broadly and deeply in the American lineage. (He's also a self-described admirer of Guillermo del Toro.) One genre that Koreans seem to like is the gangster comedy that dishes out the foibles of its ensemble of wise-guy characters. In the The Host, the ensemble is the family, with a bumbling wastrel of a son, Kwan-Du, who can dye his hair blonde but can't even fry a proper squid, much less take care of his daughter. His sister could have been the national archery champion, but she chokes in the finals. When the black sheep's daughter is carried away by the monster, family feuds - but not family bumbling - are put aside for the sake of rescuing the child. How can you not like a movie which makes a joke of human bones tumbling out of a man-eating creature's jaws?

Here we have a paradox. The monster is the creation of an unconscionable American-ordered toxic dumping, but the family's battle against the monster looks like the work of an American militia. Forget about Big Government,  as brothers and sisters pick up weapons and try to shoot the evil thing to death, like any good arms-bearing American might. Or am I wrong? Should I be seeing their "insurgency" as inspired by another kind of opposition to the long reach of American power? Sometimes you just have the take the bull by the horns.

I won't give the ending away, but I will say that a young girl's cell-phone does play a crucial role. This darkly funny tale was a tremendous hit in Korea, where the kids who go to the multiplexes are looking for anything but deep political truths. In The Host, they'll get them anyway. A sequel is already in the works, but Bong Joon-ho won't be directing it. Be fore-warned - an American remake is also said to be planned. Will Albert McFarland be a Frenchman in that version?

Posted by dwhudson at October 6, 2006 1:45 PM