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COPYRIGHT 2007 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.
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The Film File
How come we get so many films about serial killers, teen-age libidos, and the Second World War, but nothing about giant mutant tadpoles? The imbalance has always struck me as unjust, and some of us have considered forming a pressure group to lobby for the inclusion of giant mutant tadpoles in mainstream cinema. Now the pressure is off, thanks to "The Host." The director is Bong Joon-ho, and the mainstream in question is the Han, which flows through the center of Seoul. The rapid economic advance of South Korea in the nineteen-sixties and seventies is commonly known in the region as "the Miracle on the Han." Here comes the downturn.
In the opening scene, a load of old formaldehyde, tipped down the drain by a lab technician, ends up in the waters of the Han. A few years later, we see the result, though we can't quite make out what we are looking at: a dark, bulbous, comma-shaped form, drooping from the struts of a bridge. Slowly, it unfurls, like an Olympic diver, and drops neatly into the water. The good people of Seoul, amused by such novelty, toss beer cans at it and take snapshots on their cell phones. One of them glances sideways, at which point amusement comes to a halt--unlike the beast, which has hopped onto the embankment and is now pounding toward the crowd, plainly in search of a snack to go with the beer. Reading...
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