Can't wait for The Host

The Host trailer

From AICN, "Finally South Korea’s awesome monster-movie ‘The Host’. Director Joon-Ho Bong whose 2003 ‘Memories of Murder’ is one of my favourite movies of recent years, has crafted a bizarre hybrid of comedy, drama and creature feature, most closely reminiscent of the 80s classic ‘Q - The Winged Serpent’ in tone.

Following a bout of pollution in the Han river, a huge water-bound creature goes on the rampage taking Kang-Ho Sung’s daughter with it. So he and his family band together to try and get her back, constantly restrained by government forces with a different agenda.

The movie has a number of outstanding action set pieces, the attack on the riverfront at the beginning of the movie being particularly memorable, but what stands out more than anything else is the humanity of the film. It is, at its core, a story about one family’s struggle to survive and redeem its faults, resulting in a lot of humour and a fairly hefty degree of tragedy as well.

The CG monster is great. Always a threat, yet treated in a slightly irreverently humorous fashion. After all, this is a monster movie that is keenly aware of how silly monster movies are, managing to skirt just the right side of parody to create both a homage to the genre and something entirely new.

The cinematography and production design should also be noted. The carefully chosen palette of desaturated colours (reflective of the mood of the film) coupled with the beautiful framing of expansive urban locations, makes for a truly striking cinematic spectacle.

My only two criticisms of the movie would be that it is a little too long (we were apparently screened the longest cut of the movie in existence) and some of the Asian slapstick humour is a little bit of an acquired taste for Western audiences.

These are minor quibbles, however, with an otherwise pretty faultless movie."