Last night we sat down to watch The Host, a 2006 Cannes entry from Korea. This was reviewed in Rue Morgue magazine (on a cover, actually), which is one of R's favorite reads, so he had been eager to see it, and 2 weeks ago when R's friend A said he had the CD from Netflix, I knew we'd be sitting down to watch it soon.

Basically a monster movie, The Host managed to pack together some funny moments (some I bet were not really intended to be funny but came out that way thanks to the nature of translation), some pretty scary moments, and some cool scenes. It also had its political commentary regarding US involvement and cover-ups, but that aspect did not make as much of an impact for us as they may have wanted it to, I would bet, because we didn't have the background coming in to understand what Americans had done in earlier incidents to upset Koreans and we were confused about why certain things were going on. I won't address them and spoil anything, but in general, I think (again) the translation made things more clunky than it may have been otherwise. (Also, once we watched the deleted scenes, we understood quite a bit more; a lot of clarifiying information seemed to wind up on the cutting-room floor.)

Putting those questions aside, I was impressed with a number of things about this movie. The special effects were pretty good, and I very much liked the monster -- the way it flipped about with its tail, the way its mouth was layered and bloomed like an evil flower, its chameleon shape. Actress Ko A-sung was just great; she made the movie for me. I am always impressed with the Asian cinematography with children, the way they focus on their faces and eyes ... really engaging. All of the sewer scenes were very good.

In another scene, the Park family comes together to rest and eat before going back out to save Hyun-seo, and suddenly the girl appears at the table, where they all feed her. I was really taken by this; it is one of the strongest moments for the characters. One of the themes raised earlier, a lack of nourishment, comes full circle in a spiritual way here, as they psychically feed her in their eating.

At times, I felt like I was watching two movies spliced together: a good monster movie and a not-so-good political commentary. Even the soundtrack made us laugh at times. They used a crazy number of differing pieces. One scene has a chase backed by a French-style carnival song, and thought Punch and Judy would pop up and smack the crap out of each other.

All in all, this was an entertaining picture, and were it not for certain weaker plot lines, I would have really enjoyed it. As it stands, it wasn't too bad.