Interview. Bong Joon-ho.

"The Host packs a lot into its two tumultuous hours: lyrically disgusting special effects, hair-raising chases, outlandish political satire, and best of all, a dysfunctional-family psychodrama - an odyssey that's like a grisly reworking of Little Miss Sunshine," writes David Edelstein in New York.

"A broadly played clown show full of lowbrow antics, Bong's big splat is itself a sort of monster," suggests J Hoberman in the Voice, "the top grossing movie in South Korean history—and, since it surfaced at Cannes last May, festival audiences having been slurping it down like ramen.... As amorphous as its creature, The Host has an engaging refusal to take itself seriously - it's no War of the Worlds and yet, however funny, it is hardly camp. The emotions that The Host churns up, regarding idiot authority and poisonous catastrophe, are too raw—too close to disgust. Is revulsion a form of revolt?"

Updated through 3/15.

"Bong relies on a familiar bag of movie tricks in The Host," acknowledges Manohla Dargis in the New York Times. "But, much like Steven Spielberg (an unmistakable influence), he makes all those old tricks feel new.... [I]t's precisely that looseness, that willingness to depart from the narrative straight and narrow, that makes the film feel closer to a new chapter than a retread."

"[W]here Spielberg invented the language of the modern blockbuster, The Host brilliantly deconstructs it," writes Eric Kohn at the Reeler.

"Both directors stress the importance of family, but only Bong depicts it as a fragile refuge against the machinations of political power," writes Steve Erickson in Gay City News. "I can't imagine a Spielberg film ending with a young boy watching a senator speak on TV and turning away because his patter is utterly irrelevant and probably full of lies. That's America's loss and Korea's gain."

"It's smashing entertainment that has a lot more on its mind than one might reasonably expect from a film in which a giant lizard stomps around Korea eating people," writes the Philadelphia Weekly's Sean Burns.

"Potentially, it's a seriocomic exploration of the disintegration of the modern family unit, a condemnation of modern waste-disposal practices, or a cynical, post-SARS view of ineffectual crisis management," writes Andrew Wright in the Stranger. "Mainly, though, it stands as an absolutely corking giant monster movie, told with more panache and verve than anything since the lean and hungry glory days of Spielberg. Critically speaking, that's more than enough for me."

"[H]ere's what bugs me about the hype around The Host, which isn't the movie's fault at all," writes Salon's Andrew O'Hehir. "In terms of humanity and cinematic ambition and any other admirable quality you can name, this picture stands in splendid isolation among contemporary horror films. This invites the question of exactly how horror arrived at its present dismal state." Once that question's explored, he agrees that The Host is "the most satisfying monster movie in many years."

"I have next to no affinity for horror, but I left the theater charmed," admits Ella Taylor in the LA Weekly. Bong "brings to his subject a humanistic affection and expansive knowledge of the real world rarely found among filmmakers who single-mindedly nourished their childhood imaginations on things from black lagoons."

"The Host takes familiar genre elements and then crushes them in much the same way the title creature runs amok along the Seoul riverbank it calls home," writes Kevin Crust in the Los Angeles Times. "[I]t's a film that will catch you leaning in one direction and abruptly pull you in another, all the while building to a surprisingly emotional climax."

Jürgen Fauth: 5 out of 5 stars. 3½ out of 4 from Brett Michel in the Boston Phoenix, and 4 out of 5 from Craig Phillips at Guru: "Long but never feeling overlong, the film is perfectly paced between breathless action sequences, and quieter moments for character reflection and transformation, all leading up to a perfect, subversive and poignant, finale."

A "great piece of filmmaking and a legitimate science-fiction/horror classic," writes Peter Hartlaub at the San Francisco Chronicle.

Armond White in the New York Press: "The Host represents director Bong Joon-ho's scavenging of pop art clichés - not an apotheosis. It's too lame to admire, too cruddy to praise."

Peter Sobczynski talks with Bong for Hollywood Bitchslap; Andy Klein gets a few words Bong, too, for the LA CityBeat; John Lichman, too, for the Reeler.

Jennifer Young talks with Bong for SF360, where Michael Guillén talks with Webster Colcord and Arin Finger of the Orphanage about creating the monster.

Canfield posts a roundtable discussion with Bong at Twitch.

And Anthony Lane. Noted simply because the New Yorker's redesigned its site.

Online listening tip. "[O]n the IFC News podcast, Matt Singer and Alison Willmore are inspired by The Host to discuss some of the more popular horror movie tropes, like 'This Is What You Get When You Mess With Nature,' and 'This Is What You Get For Relying on Technology,' and analyze their larger significance."

Earlier: "SFBG. The Host."

Updates, 3/12: Not just "a terrific monster movie," writes Mike Russell. "This South Korean box-office smash is also a laugh-out-loud comedy and a surprisingly angry political satire."

"For the final thirty minutes, all critical faculties of my brain shut down and I was, Lord bless it, just an audience member for the first time in a very, very long while," writes John Rogers. "After seeing this, there are very famous directors in Hollywood who claim to be able to direct action who should snap their own necks in shame at even coming within ten feet of a lens."

Andrea Gronvall interviews Bong for Movie City News.

So does Charlie Prince for Cinema Strikes Back.

Update, 3/15: "Though it recalls and specifically references classics of the genre, from Jaws to Alien to Godzilla to The Winged Serpent, The Host, directed by Bong Joon-Ho, is defiantly sui generis," writes Slate's Dana Stevens. "You've never seen anything quite like it (at least until the already-planned and no doubt disappointing American remake comes out)."

Posted by dwhudson at March 9, 2007 1:06 PM