I can’t say I’ve seen too many Korean films, but this one is top-notch in my book. When I saw the previews for this a couple years ago I was looking forward to seeing it. I don’t think it ever came my way though. In classic Japanese-Godzilla-style, a strange mutated fish thing is created in a river due to toxic waste being poured down the drain. Eventually this creature gets big enough to start terrorizing the local population and eating people.
The film centers around the Park family. The grandfather runs a food stand in a park next to the river. Mr. Park is helped by one son, his daughter is an Olympic archer, and his other son is a bit of a drunk. His granddaughter is currently in the 7th grade and is one of the many victims on the day of the attack. That fateful day, and the death of the granddaughter, brings the whole family back together as they try to deal with the tragedy.
While The Host is definitely science fiction and suspenseful, there’s also some witty humor thrown into the mix amongst some of the more tense scenes. I found it quite hilarious when these sarcastic remarks were thrown in during the scenes when you shouldn’t be laughing.
I would highly suggest this for anyone who even thought of maybe seeing it. While this movie is about a monster, it’s not a scary horror movie that will leave you jumping out of your seats. It’s also not cheesy and boring like many of these can be.
Rating: 
I wasn’t really sure what to expect by this movie and my initial response after watching this was, “huh?” I’m not schooled in eastern philosophy or buddhism so I know that I missed out on the meaning of a lot of things. There’s also not much dialogue in the film, it’s mostly imagery.
The movie starts off with a monk living out in the middle of nowhere in a floating house on a lake. A young boy lives with him who is being trained to be a monk. Eventually the boy grows up, becomes tempted by worldy desires, and leaves the old monk. Then, later on the boy returns a grown man and learns yet another lesson from the monk before leaving again. Now the old monk is all alone again and eventually dies leaving the small monastary empty. In the last “season” a new monk comes to tend the monastary. I’m not sure if this is just some random monk, the old monk reincarnated, or maybe even the grown boy that the old monk taught.
Like I said earlier, there is a lot of Eastern symbolism that I know I wasn’t understanding. There are several things including statues of Buddha and another statue of what I believe was a goddess of some sort. I was trying to read some things on the IMDB message boards, but that turned into a lot of people giving their opinions and telling the other person they were totally wrong.
This movie definitely has an Eastern religious theme to it. If you don’t know much about that topic, aren’t really into foreign movies and need dialogue to keep the movie flowing for you, I would stay away from this one.
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