The Host (2006)
The movie tells the story of a monster which emerges from Seoul's Han River and focuses its attention on attacking people. When the monster snatches away a young girl, her entire family sets out to locate the beast and bring their little girl back home to safety.
13 May 1991, South Korea
26 January 1977, South Korea
13 October 1970, Busan, South Korea
15 November 1965, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea
10 August 1992, Seoul, South Korea
November 16, 2012
Joon-ho Bong's The Host is a very different kettle of mutated fish.August 10, 2010
A pleasant reminder of the pleasures in the low-budget quickly made monster B-film of the 1950s.March 30, 2007
Bravely shifting tones from the horrific to the slapstick and back again, Bong Joon-ho has made a movie that's comprised almost equally of family sitcom, political indictment, high-urban paranoia and maximum-geek, monster-movie delight.July 14, 2008
This monster movie from the Republic of Korea is one of the best films of its kind.March 23, 2007
Maybe this is actually a treatise on the dissonance between East and West, science and nature, promise and tragedy. Nah. It's just a dumb, crappy horror movie that wants to be celebrated as such.April 01, 2007
A horror thriller, a political satire, a dysfunctional family comedy, and a touching melodrama, Bong Joon-ho's The Host is also one helluva monster movie.March 23, 2007
The film's limber and inventive director Joon-ho Bong keeps The Host creeping and leaping for its entire two hours, which are filled with incident after incident, alternately terrifying, ridiculous, suspenseful and wry.March 23, 2007
Rarely plays out the way you expect. Director Bong is careful to deliver the promised scares, but he is also willing to overlook plot formulas to explore his own interests.September 24, 2010
A livid bureaucratic satire, berserk creature feature and surprisingly somber drama, "The Host" is a convulsive, wild ride - simultaneously eliciting squirms and giggles by mashing up finger-pointing anger with "The Thing's" wiseass wickedness.June 24, 2008
Minor flaws in a film destined to be embraced by genre fans worldwide.April 01, 2007
As ebullient and bizarre as a monster that can do back flips, leaving the viewer in a shock of delight.August 27, 2009
A subversive blast