THE HOST

Seoul. On a sunny day, a large number of people are having a picnic by the Han River, but a strange creature approaches the bathers: curiosity quickly turns into fear, as the monster emerges from the water and begins to sow terror. Before diving back into the river, the creature grabs and takes with it a young girl, Hyun-seo. After that incident, the girl's father and his family will begin hunting the monster to find her, clashing with government forces who would like to keep them under observation in a military hospital for fear that the monster has transmitted a virus to them. For the series "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's", the monster movie, after a long and tortuous journey that has touched the most varied geographies (with a preference for North America), returns to the Far East, specifically to South Korea, represented by what the numbers have consecrated as the greatest commercial Korean cinematic success of all time: "The Host". The film in question does indeed stand apart from the camp aesthetics of Godzilla & Co. that made Asian cinematic production of this genre famous, instead seeking an unusual genre contamination and a formal elegance typical of the blockbuster. Although the premises are really excellent, in the end "The Host" shows more flaws than merits, leaving a bitter taste in the mouth of those who were predisposed to the grand return of the kaiju-eiga tradition after the "fans-only" ghettoization of the latest Asian productions belonging to the genre. In this regard, "The Host" has a magnificent opening. After the routine prologue in which the cause of the imminent monstrosity is shown, as usual generated by human fraudulent action against nature (in this case the director and screenwriter Joon-ho Bong was inspired by a real news event that occurred in 2000, when an American scientist ordered his subordinate to dump several liters of formaldehyde into Seoul's sewers), we witness the stunning first attack of the monster, rich in pathos and adrenaline, capable of truly leaving the viewer open-mouthed. The director does not have too many problems and immediately catalyzes the attention directly on the creature, which, unlike most horror-style monster movies, is immediately shown clearly in all its digital splendor, almost as if to assert that in 2006 it is useless to hide the monster's appearance from a potentially now weaned public. Having done that, having therefore lulled the viewer on an exciting roller coaster, the show begins to creak. Starting from the ridiculous and grotesquely melodramatic "funeral" scene, the film immediately removes its mask and reveals that it is focused solely on the story of a family that lost a child in the monster's attack. The story then becomes intimate and, from now on, will always and in any case bypass the fanta-apocalyptic flavor that these films usually have. The choice may be agreeable or not, but it is undeniably a bold and in some ways original decision, a pity that it works little. On several occasions, the card of grotesque comedy is played, filled with that over-the-top humor thought for the exclusive use and consumption of the Orientals themselves; then moving on to the family drama from a joke, complete with all possible and imaginable clichés and consumed in a family nucleus composed of stereotypical characters treated in a superficial and absolutely predictable way. To highlight the abuse of "clichés" inserted in "The Host", it is enough to think that there is a second-generation family consisting of a father and a small daughter, with the maternal ghost looming "guiltily" over her loved ones. There is then a loving father/grandfather who embodies tradition and dedication to work, a bit gruff but with a heart of gold; an insecure daughter/sister/aunt unable to express her talent and a arrogant and frustrated son/brother/uncle. Add then that the protagonist is the classic clumsy character who follows a transformation arc that leads him to be a hero, that the aunt is presented in an archery competition in which she cannot launch the arrow that could bring her victory, screaming thus to the viewer that at the end she will be able to launch that arrow, that the arrogant uncle must eventually prove himself altruistic and be the protagonist of at least one heroic gesture. In short, characters created with the mold of which we intuit the fate from the first moment they are presented to us. "What's so strange about that?". You will say. After all, these are very frequent character topoi in entertainment cinema. The fact is that "The Host" has been inexplicably elevated to a masterpiece in many places, where I have never happened to read a mention of the countless banalities and/or shortcomings of which this film is undeniably a carrier, almost to suspect that the sea of ovations comes more for the geographical origin of the product than for real artistic merits. But let's move on. The film is excessively long (2 hours) and gets lost in a sea of prolixity that considerably weigh the enjoyment of the product. At one point, the "virus" theme is also introduced, since the hypothesis is thrown that the monster is a carrier of some contagion. This would have been a beautiful card to play, contextualizing also the current fear of pandemics that often sees Asia as the protagonist and thus providing the work with that socio-political flavor that has always run under the skin of this kind of productions, enhancing them. Unfortunately, however, the virus variant is soon abandoned abruptly with a U-turn of political denouncement that, if more developed, would have provided added value to the entire work. Thus, instead, there is only the impression of having wanted to add too much meat to the fire without having had the ability to cook it properly, thus only increasing the general sense of confusion and heaviness. For the rest, it must be said that the overall packaging, as often happens in blockbusters, is really of the highest quality, starting with the look of the creature and its realization, curated by the team The Orphanage in association with the New Zealand Weta. Also, Joon-ho Bong's direction ("Memories of Murder") is dynamic and professional, both in the action scenes and in the more static ones, and is rendered at its best starting from the already mentioned opening sequence. "The Host" is therefore a mediocre product, certainly overrated, which allows too many drops in rhythm and style. In the monster movie field, better has certainly been done recently with the unsettling "Cloverfield".