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The Host

Posted on Oct 16, 2007 at 9:10 am by DrBlood

If you can put up with the variations in pitch of the Korean voices (and having to read subtitles) then this is really quite good for a CGI monster based comedy-horror.
In many ways I'd say this does for Korea what "Night Watch" did for Russia. There are some bits which will undoubtledly lead many to love it and others to hate it.
The heroes are from the poorer working class and you'll see a way of life and culture depicted in the background which is quite a bit different to how we are in the west.
One major problem which I found was that it was very hard to judge acting ability as this isn't a 100% serious film. It isn't quite a comedy either but it certainly has comic moments (maybe too many). It's also really quite hard to place this in any genre apart from "cult" as it certainly felt as if it was intended for that niche.
The monster of the title ("Gwoemul" just means "monster") is totally CGI. It is done very well but, as ever, it is still horrible and would be equally at home in a computer game. It's a very nasty looking thing though and is one of the most original creatures that I've seen for a while. The way it moves is quite impressive.
It's a pity that the same can't be said for the messy plot. The pacing is upset as there is way too much time spent on the family members' subplots rather than the monster and the race against time to save the girl suffers as a result. It also often moves too far into obvious anti-American political satire.
Having said that, it has some quite touching scenes here and there and is a film with many layers. The girl who plays the archer is very pretty too but I wish more use had been made of her.
The bottom line is that I enjoyed most of it. The ending was very predictable, it needed just a little bit more action and certainly could have done with some more gore.
If you like monster movies, you'll like this but don't watch if you are expecting it to be scary.

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DrBlood

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