On Tuesday, I caught the first preview for Bong Joon-ho’s much-anticipated monster movie THE HOST, and I can safely say it is the best Korean film of the year so far. Probably the best Korean film since THE PRESIDENT’S LAST BANG. It is no MEMORIES OF MURDER (Bong’s previous movie), but it is still very good. So I thought I would provide a bit of a review.
[WARNING: MILD SPOILERS AHEAD]
As you probably know by now, THE HOST is the story of a monster that emerges from the Han River one sunny day and immediately begins creating all sorts of havoc and eating people — including the daugher of the slightly dopey Gang-du (Song Gang-ho).
The government tries to take action, but is bumbling and ineffectual. Worried that the monster is carrying a highly contagious virus, the authorities lock up everyone who encountered the monster during its rampage.
But then Gang-du receives a phone call and learns something that makes it vital he escape. Gang-du and his family get out, buy some guns, and go hunting for the monster. And then… but that would be telling.
Anyhow, the story is well told, with first-rate special effects (aside from a glaring problem at the climax of the film), a lot of scares, a little gore, and plenty of excitement.
Unfortunately, the biggest problem with the movie comes in the very first scene. The film begins at a laboratory on the Yongsan Army Base, as a nasty American officer orders his Korean underling to dump a huge load of chemicals down the drain. The powerless underling tries to object, but buckles under pressure and pours out the chemicals.
It is, frankly, a cliché and stupid scene, with stilted English and goofy non-logic. The tone is greatly out of sync with the rest of the story, too.
However, it is a brief scene, and I think you would have to be hypersensitive to let it ruin the movie for you. As the Metropolitician points out in his review, Bong Joon-ho makes a lot of jabs at many aspects of Korean society, and most of those jabs are a lot harder than what the USFK receives (not to mention more accurate).
In the end, THE HOST is mostly critical of that bumbling, half-assed part of Korean society that blithely goes about its self-absorbed business, unaware and unconcerned with the terrible, even deadly consequences, those actions can have. Think the Sampoong Department Store collapse.
Most importantly, it is a fun, exciting film, with wit, scares, and lots of good stuff. Totally worth checking out.
If you want to check out the teaser trailer, go here.
If you want to see the theatrical trailer, go here.
(Sorry, no subtitles on either).
48 Comments
interesting to note the pre-emptive apologies from both yourself and the metropolitician regarding the first scene. that really says a lot.
the intent of the filmmaker is obvious, regardless of your attempts to downplay it. it is the FIRST SCENE in the film. it sets up the entire story and makes it very clear where the problem begins and who is responsible. it stakes out america as the ORIGIN of the entire disaster. the US military plants the seed for death and destruction, through intimidation and pressure on a poor, very symbolic, very victimized south korean.
this is not a mistake, nor is it a minor part of the story. it is a gross exaggeration of an actual event, followed by more ridiculous exaggerations of the supposed consequences of the actual event. not to mention yet another pile of dirt on the mountain of korean “evidence” that it is a country without any control over its own destiny, and that virtually every instance of pain and suffering that korea has endured has been the result of evil intent on the part of the americans.
“the day after tomorrow” was a stupid fucking movie. a large part of its stupidity was a scene in the beginning of the movie that showed numerous government (obviously republican) officials that were denying the existence of global warming and refused to take any action to stop it. their refusal was directly linked to the disaster that followed, and it was an enormously stupid fucking cheap shot from which there was no way the movie could have recovered.
ditto for this shit-stain. i could care less what follows the opening scene. the premise of the film and all that it implies is enough for me to declare it yet another stupid fucking movie.
tell bong to give me a ring when he’s able to shed his self-inflicted han/victim-syndrome and just focus on making a good film. until then, he’s just another douchebag with a chip on his shoulder.
at least he got something right.
I too was wondering about the idea that the monster was a monster/parasite that was inflicted upon Korea by the U.S.
This smells more like subtle, political allegory and, as such, I would not see this film or endorse it.
I agree with you both. That smug 양아치 Bong is on record as saying he intended to point out the “wrongdoings” of the U.S.
> tell bong to give me a ring when he’s able to shed his self-inflicted han/victim-syndrome
> and just focus on making a good film. until then, he’s just another douchebag with a chip on his shoulder.
And you can give me a ring when you able to shed that chip off of your shoulder and form opinions after you know what you are talking about. If you cannot enjoy a really good film because it makes a small political point you disagree with, then you are the one with the chip.
You have not seen the film, so don’t pretend you really know what it is about. If the film was two hours of bellyaching about the US military presence in Korea, I would have hated it and criticized Bong for it. But that is not what the film is about. The film is two hours of this family’s struggle, with small bits of satire/allegory/whatever drifting around in the background.
Yeah, the premise is annoying, but this is a *monster* movie. Mad scientists and evil militaries are pretty stock characters in such stories. Bitching about realism in a monster movie makes you sound like Nulji.
(Btw, if you think DAY AFTER TOMORROW was a stupid film because it was politically partisan, you have some huge problems. DAT was stupid for a thousand reasons (plot, dialogue, science). It’s lame politics were just the icing on the moron cake.)
Go ye forth Haisan and teach those Koreans who ragged my ear for 30 minutes about the insult to Korea in the film Outbreak in 1995. I had to ask what it was. Apparently, the ship that brought the infected monkey to Baltimore was a Korean tramp freighter. No one but a
WVanker would have caught that incredibly small and irrelevant detail.I’m not going to comment on a film I haven’t seen, but I was talking to a Korean who was at the preview who really, really liked the film, but said it was clearly anti-American. And that the first scene wasn’t the only scene in which this was visible (i.e., the stuff with the Center for Disease Control, etc.).
Yeah, there are a couple other digs at the United States. One of them, however, is really, really funny. Done well, I usually don’t care so much if someone says something I disagree with. But I concentrated on the opening because the scene is such a clunker… it felt really out of place.
I was talking to an analyst at a local securities company, a guy who specializes in media issues. He saw the preview, too, and while he liked the movie, the anti-American bits (especially the opening) were part of the reason he greatly downgraded his prediction for how well the movie would do. If it was pure candy, and had a more Hollywood ending, he would have guessed THE HOST would be the latest film to pass the 10-million-admissions mark. As it is, he thinks 5 million is more realistic.
It also seems the people involved with the film are stressing through the media that the film is not anti-American, perhaps because they know it would turn off a lot of potential viewers.
the fact is, bong had a choice. given the long history of koreans polluting their own environment at a rate exponentially higher than anything the US military could ever dream of, he could have just as easily made the villain a domestic one. instead, he chose to cherry pick a rare, real incident involving the US military, distort it, and inject it into his film to put the root cause and responsibility for all the suffering of the koreans in the rest of the film on the doorstep of the united states. the entire point of including that first scene is to show the korean audience a causal relationship between american arrogance and korean suffering. it’s a simplistic exploitation of existing korean prejudices and anti-american emotions, and it’s complete and utter chickenshit.
the fact that you refer to it as a small political point only highlights your ignorance. bong is not interested in telling a story, he’s interested in trying to connect dots to make a much larger point about the effects of the US military presence in korea. for something so blatant and obvious, you seem to be doing your best to make it seem subtle and irrelevant. if it were in fact irrelevant, it would be on the cutting room floor.
I haven’t seen fahrenheit 9/11 or super size me either, but i can tell you they’re piles shit regardless, simply based on the premise of each.
I’m bitching about realism because the fucking director injected the realism himself. you can’t have it both ways. if it’s just a fantasy monster movie, then why the obvious link to a REAL incident?
btw, day after tomorrow was a stupid fucking movie for a lot reasons. the correlation to the host has to do with the fact that both directors made the stupid fucking decision to try and use exaggerated, distorted versions of real events to give their films some bullshit link to reality, and therefore, what they think is credibility. my bringing it up had nothing to do with the partisanship angle. it had to do with feeble attempts to blend reality with their fiction to lend credibility. learn the difference.
Poor Bones. He’s gotta put up this “polluting uri nara” nonsense yet again. A documentary ought to be made about how many Korean scandals he’s had to clean up.
And on that note:
Up from the depths
Thirty stories high
Breathing fire
His head in the sky
Godzilla!
Godzilla!
Godzilla!
And Godzookie….
The more I think about this, the more it becomes a non-issue to me. Many movies have a villian and that villian is often just a sign of the politics (or feelings of the movie maker) at the time.
For the longest time, a common villian in Hollywood movies was Russian as it sutied the politics of the cold war. It has evolved to other villians now, with very few involving a Russian “bad guy”. It has to be somebody, right?
This is not to say that Hollywood does not have a good number of domestic villians either - it just depends on the nature of the movie.
As for “The Host”, I have not seen it so I cannot comment fully on what happens, but as far as I am concerned, it is only a movie. Is it a cheap potshot? Sure. They could have just as easily made it a result of the rampant industrial pollution by Korean corps. Similar crap comes out of Hollywood too.
I think, perhaps, some people who feel insulted by jibes the filmmakers is said to have made in this film (who, just for the record, are nowhere near as sensitive about perceived slights to their country as Koreans are) are missing a very important aspect of this movie that affects certain people from almost every country all over the world.
Put simply, I must say that I’m disappointed by the fact that the creature was black. In this day and age of mixed-race Koreans beginning to (perhaps!) gain a little more acceptance, I fear this association will taint people with darker skin (whether they are mixed race or ‘guest’ workers) in the minds of many Koreans, especially young and impressionable ones. It saddens me that such a “progressive” filmmaker, one whose previous films I have enjoyed a great deal, would stoop so low to gain audience approval. I feel this film’s release couldn’t have come at a more inopportune time, and I hope the filmmaker will reconsider the use of black and change the monster’s color to magenta, or perhaps turquoise. A beet color might also work well.
“the intent of the filmmaker is obvious, regardless of your attempts to downplay it. it is the FIRST SCENE in the film. it sets up the entire story and makes it very clear where the problem begins and who is responsible. it stakes out america as the ORIGIN of the entire disaster. the US military plants the seed for death and destruction, through intimidation and pressure on a poor, very symbolic, very victimized south korean.”
Gee……I hope the french were as sporting as you,when hollywood made Godzilla.
Reading the comments on here, I am always puzzled by these shoulder-shrugging, “hey, we’re just as bad” type comments, i.e. the constant efforts to play down Korean nationalism by equating it with American cultural insensitivity/ignorance.
If you are saying that the two phenomena are equally bad from a moral point of view, then fine. I agree.
But if you really think the two phenomena are politically comparable, then you just haven’t grasped the intensity of Korean nationalism - or what an enormous effect it is going to have on this country’s near future.
i.e. the constant efforts to play down Korean nationalism by equating it with American cultural insensitivity/ignorance. Montclaire
Gimme a break. American cultural ignorance could get quite deadly for the ignored. It’s easier to drop some bombs on some unknown civilian dumbfucks in an fucked up unknown 3rd world country, that nobody heard of before. Guess that’s something, that makes Korean cultural nationalism a lesser evil than America’s cultural ignorance in the eyes of some beholders?
Hollywood’s high testosterone mantra over decades changed only slightly:
Mostly white boys = good, innocent and honest, save the US nation from evil scalp-taking native savages, evil Sicilian mobsters, evil commie Vietnamese, evil commie Russians, evil Japanese business-samurai, evil gun-tooting ghetto blacks, evil commie Chinese, evil Arabs, Arabs, Arabs and other camel hoppers.
yes, let’s remember, godzilla was made by the us and it’s nuclear testing. y’all know that, right?
don’t like what you haven’t seen? then, don’t watch it. it’s that simple.
happy loafing.
SugarShin: I’m familiar with your logic from the World Cup thread: If two political phenomena can kill they are fundamentally the same, and the phenomenon that kills more people is worse. O-kay. If that’s as nuanced an analysis as you can muster, fine. But that attitude is not conducive to learning more about Korea.
You seem to be opposed to the notes of moral indignation or downright hatred that some posts have when they criticize Korea. I’m with you there. Some are constantly acting scandalized about things that are just part of the political culture in this country. Last year it was the movie Tongmakkol making anti-US propaganda, this year it’s Host, next year it will be another.
But the knee-jerk “come on, US no better!” refrain is at best irrelevant, at worst awfully America-centric in that tiresome Bruce Cumings way, and does nothing to advance understanding of Korea, which I thought was the whole aim of this blog.
There’re mostly US commentators here at Marmot’s judging about Korea and Koreans. Korean commentators rebuke with judgements about the US and Americans to balance the perspective. It’s not awfully America-centric and come on, let’s face it, “advance understanding” of Korea is the least what some of the rabid expat-hypocrites use to think, when they post their arrogance-induced drivels. My ass, let’s not talk about my dirt on my doormat, but about yours… hm, fair deal, huh?!
Whoah, a Christian. No wonder it’s all on a moral level with you. And I was trying to use logic.
Whoah, a fool. No wonder it’s all on a logical level with you.
Logic is a careful, serious, systematic method of coming to the wrong conclusion with absolute confidence.
> Last year it was the movie Tongmakkol making anti-US propaganda, this year it’s Host, next year it will be another.
Just because a movie (or any piece of art or entertainment) does something dumb or something you disagree with does not make it propaganda. Which was the point of my original post. HANBANDO is propaganda. FAHRENHEIT 9/11 is propaganda. DONGMAKGOL is… uh, well I’m not sure what DONGMAKGOL is (besides stupid).
Anyhow, THE HOST is not propaganda. As the Goat said, it takes a couple of cheap potshots at the USFK, but that is not what the movie is about. The movie is about this family versus the monster. If you want to look for allegories or messages, there are far more about the failings of Korean society than there are about the United States… But any allegories/messages in THE HOST definitely take a back seat to the story itself. It is far less a “message” story than, say, THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA.
“Reading the comments on here, I am always puzzled by these shoulder-shrugging, “hey, we’re just as bad” type comments, i.e. the constant efforts to play down Korean nationalism by equating it with American cultural insensitivity/ignorance.” - Montclair
What most people here are ignoring is that movies like Dongmagol and the Host have scenes where South Koreans themselves come off looking like the worst villains, far worse than Americans. I don’t hear anybody saying the movies are anti-Korean.
The obvious difference is that the Korean movies mentioned show numerous Korean characters, good and bad (and not usually bad in an evil way). The only Americans shown, on the other hand, are evil, just as the only Japanese shown in TV dramas about the colonial era are evil. The conclusion to be drawn is obvious.
This is of course SugarShin’s cue to point out, with his usual obsession with the moral dimension, that Koreans have been treated like this in Hollywood too. I agree. (e.g. the lone Korean in Goldfinger is a murderous thug.) But the point is: no Korean can come away from Tongmakkol or Host with as bad an impression of his countrymen as of Americans. And the second point: they are not intended to either.
SugarShin et al are typical of a general refusal on the part of Koreans to admit that they are ever anti-American. They never object to the Korean word 반미, which is still often used on posters for Korean college kids running for class president, etc. 반미 is good. But the English word “anti-Americanism” seems to imply wrongness or irrationality to them, and they bristle at it. Back in 2002, during the orgy of US flag-burnings, that F*cking USA song (and buttons) and “Americans Not Welcome Here” signs, young Koreans were indignant that the demonstrations were being “distorted” in the West as anti-American.
So expecting the Koreans to acknowledge the anti-Americanism in Host (by Korean standards very subtle anti-Americanism)is perhaps a tall order.
Reread my comments please. I never mentioned, how Koreans were depicted in Hollywood movies, rather the degrading methods of plump dehumanization and stigmatisation of various “enemy groups” (e.g. Russsians, Chinese, Arabs)over decades in Hollywood’s action movies. You lament about “anti-Americanism” in Korean movies without seeing, that the same anti-whateverism is used in American movies. The actual movie message in the US goes like this: all Arabs = all terrorists.
You seem to think I’m arguing from the implicit assumption that the US is morally better. I’m merely arguing from the assumption that it’s different. America’s Islamophobia is a different beast from Korean nationalism, a phenomenon that deserves attention in its own right.
Your “let the nation that is without sin cast the first stone” attitude precludes any kind of serious critical focus on Korea - or on the US, for that matter. You should teach a political science course. One or two quotes from the Good Book and it would be all over.
Your “let the nation that is without sin cast the first stone” attitude precludes any kind of serious critical focus on Korea - or on the US, for that matter. Montclaire
Oh no, I’m in no way against civilized criticism against Korea, but against excluding comparisons with America and the bullcrap lamenting about “let’s not compare with USA, it’s a different issue, let’s focus on Korea”.
And by the way, I’m an atheist, although I quoted the brillant message of common sense about judging others from the Good Book!
Thanks a lot for your suggestion, but I had my fair share of political sciences courses - in the West and not from some Korean institutes as you might think, buddy …
For a Christian to take that quote from the Bible as expressing a constructive attitude for political inquiry would be silly enough. But for an atheist to quote it, and for its “brilliant common sense” no less, is just priceless!
I’d ask for your definition of “civilized criticism,” but judging from your own posts I see it means making constant comparison to the US when the US is as bad or worse in regard to the point in question - but not when the US is better, in which case comparison must be excluded.
… but not when the US is better, in which case comparison must be excluded. Montclaire
This is so typical and classic. Can’t you read???
Don’t you ever learn anything than interpreting and fiddling intentions into statements of mine and attacking your self-constructed attacking points?
I never excluded comparisons with the US or Europe, even in cases when it would look badly for the Korean society. Never did I paint awkward Korean issues in rosy colors. Reread all of my comments of the last 2 years if you care. Sheesh.
You never answered the argument, why it shouldn’t be suitable for Korean commenters to use the same benachmark of criticism and somewhile bitchiness, that is so naturally applied on them by American expat commenters. That’s the focal point of this little dialogue between us and not a overblown debate of a “political inquiry”.
Bible quotes ain’t that silly for political discussions. There lies some wisdom in looking into theological and philosphical books of all religious beliefs. It could widen someone’s small horizion and limited point of view.
Montclaire - I think Sugar Shin would agree with you that sober, objective, and constructive criticism (which is what I think he means by “civilized criticism”) on problems in Korean society is fair game. What he is addressing is the problem of bitter expats making sweeping, judgmental remarks on Korea and Koreans based on their own standpoint (or illusion) of superiority stemming from standards they bring over from their own countries. In cases like these, invoking the “well, what about you?” point of inquiry seems more valid. And given the myriads of shallow commentary by so-called “writers” who take themselves way too seriously, not to mention the single-minded cheap shots at Koreans flung by many a bitter expat throughout the K-blogosphere (and I’ll also admit the disgraceful “netizens” don’t help the situation much either), I find Sugar Shin’s approach reasonable.
One thing we can safely blame the U.S. for is stupid CGI monster movies like this one.
Is this banter for real? I’m not a big fan of monster movies so I won’t go out of my way to see this one, but the some of the comments on this thread are about as goofy as the killer tomatoes or the 100 foot woman.
Judging from the liberally slung terms “bitter expat” or “air of superiority” I don’t think the pawi/nulji/M_F/Sugar/GMJ types would know constructive criticism if it bit’em in the ass. I mean crap!! Péter plus haut que son cul!
And I love it when folks turn to scripture to invoke some fictional measure of integrity. That Matthew 7 passage has to be one of the most violated pieces of scripture that the soft-skinned craven have come up with to hide behind…and misunderstood as well. Don’t Judge?? No way, judge away!! Just be careful and be ready for the return accusation that will come your way. And for those using that passage as a weenie wacker, be careful of their accusations the most!! Such fragile spirits.
Geez, that was constructive criticism of its finest, Mr. Chips! Chapeau.
merci sugar, t’enveux encore?
Comparing Sugar Shin with Nulji was a cheap shot, Mr.Chips. What does Sugar Shin’s ethnicity have to do with his views? I am a European-American who agrees that some of this blog’s expat commentators are prone to making mostly negative comments about Korea and negative generalizations about Korean people.
Sugar Shin, comparing you to nulji was wrong and I apologise.
Chastisement accepted, Sonagi.
I did NOT, however, have ethnicity in mind nor did I even allude to it in my comment so I don’t appreciate that insinuation. Negative generalizations might occur here and there but that doesn’t give one cause to write off any comment you don’t agree with as bitterness or racism. Further, scripture was invoked on numberous occasions in this thread as if to give this vague and generalized criticism of “bitter” expats some credence. I stand by my original statement concerning that: That is craven. You want to disagree or repudiate someone’s “seemingly” bitter or generalized comments, fine. Don’t hide behind that generalization invoking scripture and not expect to be taken to task for it.
The only Americans shown, on the other hand, are evil, just as the only Japanese shown in TV dramas about the colonial era are evil. The conclusion to be drawn is obvious.
In The Host, there is a major scene involving a blonde-haired American GI who is not only NOT evil, he is helping Song Kang-ho attack the monster.
i just saw the movie over the weekend. didn’t want to but my date had already bought the tickets.
the movie was lot better than i expected and the anti-americanism wasn’t overt and rampant as i was expecting. maybe my korean is not up to par, but other than the first scene, americans are not portrayed as some evil people occupying this land. in fact, as kushibo mentioned above, one american risks his life to save others while all other koreans run away. it was a decent film. i liked it that it wasn’t like other monster movies where the buildup takes forever. it’s a movie one needs to truly see it before judging it.
All due respect to Haisan, who I’m sure is sick of seeing my comments at this point
but is it all that far out to see this movie as in some regards a political allegory expressing the ambivalence many Koreans have about the U.S. troop presence? I can even understand how the ambivalence has come about historically, and this film sounds like it encompasses it pretty well.
Earlier I think I said there was a distinctly anti-American trend in recent Korean films, now after reading an interview with Bong I’d say they’re more nuanced than that, more like a view of “inside” Korean society with all the contradictions intact.
In the end, not being Korean, I can’t watch “The Host,” “Welcome to Dongmakgol” or “Hanbando” without getting annoyed with the revisionism.
i didn’t watch welcome to dongmakgol and hanbando for the same reasons you stated above. while many koreans have praised welcome to donmakgol as being a good movie, many have canned hanbando. many of the comments i’ve heard about the latter is that it’s too nationalistic, boring and unrealistic. while these movies have a political allergory that criticizes the us in a subtle manner, i don’t think many koreans are catching them. i may be wrong but when i discuss the issue with the koreans, it seems many didn’t catch it or think much of it. in any event, with the exception of the beginning, and perhaps the ending in terms of graphic, the movie is pretty entertaining.
You’d be wrong if you think Koreans aren’t catching the allegories. They’re not idiots.
montclaire from Korea (South) Are for real? “America’s Islamophobia ” Do you read newspapers or history books? If you did you would know that the towel heads waged war on the United States and not the other way around. Oh and here’s another newsflash… the U.S. bailed Korea out of shithood back in the early 50’s. We are not enemies of South Korea, we are allies. This is all probably going over your head.
joel,
when i said many koreans are not catching the allegories, it was based simply on what my co-workers were saying. of course, they don’t represent the whole population, but based on what people were discussing on monday morning, i figured not many were catching it. perhaps, they were being sensitive to my pro-us stance when it comes to politics. but yesterday, one asked me if i understood the movie and catch all the subtle messages. i asked if she meant the anti-americanism. she said not the criticism of us policies but the criticism of the korean society in general and the meaning of family. i guess i’m a fool.
Excuse the tardiness, I just caught on to this.
From The Metropolitain:
“America doesn’t escape getting poked pretty hard in the first scene, but I think it gets interesting and unexpectedly balanced by another plot point that makes for an interesting mixture of “pokes” and “jabs” when combined with the many others. If you are the kind of American who finds yourself, deeply offended every time somebody takes a critical shot at the US, you might find yourself grumbling in your seat during the opening scene; if you’re a good sport and take it along with all the other sticking and moving that the director does, touching on a variety of places in Korean society, you’ll easily forget that first 30 seconds and take it with the sense of humor and grain of salt that it needs to go down smoother.”
From the author of the Marmot post in the comments section:
“If you cannot enjoy a really good film because it makes a small political point you disagree with, then you are the one with the chip.
You have not seen the film, so don’t pretend you really know what it is about. If the film was two hours of bellyaching about the US military presence in Korea, I would have hated it and criticized Bong for it.”
Gee. Wouldn’t it be nice to live in a Korea or with a Korea where it was just a coule of minutes in a film. Just a drop in an empty bucket. But most of us have experience the real Korea. This reference is a drop in a never ending sea of references. If you look around, it really is staggering.
In the 2000 case this movie specfically references, 20 gallons of a fromaldehyde derivative dumped in a sewer system that was treated 3 or more times before it touched the Han sent the newly NK-friendly the whole of South Korean society into a canipshun lasting 4 to 6 months. I have covered that fun here: http://www.usinkorea.org/2nd/e.....mping.html
A couple of years later - some Korean lumber companies were finally brought to court for allowing 271 tons of the same substance to run off directly into the Han. I guess you can imagine what kind of explosion in anger and hate and vile displays of calling for vengence those 271 gallons created - if you happened to see what the 20 gallons casued ——– but I don’t think those 271 tons even amount to 2 or 3 movie minutes in the Korean news. I didn’t hear about it. Later, I heard Yonhap mentioned it. I caught wind of it in an editorial http://search.hankooki.com/tim.....p;media=kt
Nope. No explosion. If I were making a movie about a monster created by pollution and linked the monster directly to fromalin dumped in the Han - I might pick those 271 gallons. But, that’s me…
My point overall is that this movie reference is just one in a constant, yearly barrage of messages. If we just looked at pollution and the environment alone, we’d be overwhelmed. I did this review looking at the English language press coverage of specific cases of pollution against individual Korean entities and those referring to USFK. It was 26 to 6 with no mention of any Korean business of significant size.
http://usinkorea.org/issues/yo.....korea.html
I’m currently doing a similar thing with the KBS and MBC video news archives, and I’m finding the same thing. I’m finding a lot of frequent stories about general pollution. How this stream, that moutain, the air in this city are all highly polluted. But, who did the polluting? If you watch the Korean news, you’d think it came from two places - small business, but more than that, USFK (and the US Embassy). Those are the ones singled out in the stories that go beyond the generic and talk about specific pollutors.
It is a lot like this article from the Donga English version.
http://english.donga.com/srv/s.....6072951308
“The government is taking emergency measures after perchlorate, known to cause thyroid disorders, was detected in a great quantity in the Nakdong River water system, an important source of drinking water for Yeongnam residents.”
“The water in which the concentration of perchlorate was detected surpassed the US EPA standard by 90 times was revealed to be water flowing into the Gumi Sewage Disposal Plant discharged from Gumi Industrial Complex 3.”
Reading that got my juices flowing. Maybe I was going to hear a specific reference to chaebol pollutors. But, what I got was:
“The government advised company A that had been discharging large amounts of perchlorate through detergents to reduce the use and discharge of perchlorate.
Company A is known to have lowered the concentrations of perchlorate in the sewage from 16,060ppb to 70ppb from July 17 by running the biochemistry disposal facility.”
Company A huh….
I don’t have the link handy, but this was very similar to a KBS story from a couple of months ago about stunted tree growth on a moutain near an industrial complex in Ulsan. It was typical of most others I’ve seen. A researcher or environmentalist took the reporter around to show the growth. The camera man did some long, long shots of the factories in the complex. They even went into the streets of the industrial area for a few shots. But, not only did the name of a chaebol or specific Korean big business that might operate those factories came up, when the camera came close to showing the factories, they blurred the shot so you couldn’t make out any logos or names on the buildings. I had to go online to find out Ulsan is a Hyundai stronghold.
So again —- maybe I’d have a chip on my shoulder if I was obsessing over a couple of minutes in an otherwise fine movie. But I’m talking about Korea…….
I’m talking about a society in which groups like Green Korea and other “radical” groups obsessed with how horrible the US and USFK are for Korea and spend every week of every month of each year trying to convince the “non”radical part that the evil is no longer necessary. We’re talking about a society in which pop culture references like the little tid bit in this movie abound. We’re talking about a society that could work itself up into such a frenzy over 20 gallons, and create a continual Process where 20 gallons regularly trumps 271 tons, that 6 years after the 20 gallons were dumped, a popular movie could use it as the basis of how the monster out of the highly polluted Han was made.
“I might pick those 271 gallons.” 271 tons
“But, not only did the name of a chaebol or specific Korean big business that might operate those factories came up” —– sigh —– that should be that the name of the companies did NOT get mentioned.
And we get this little pop cultural reference when? At a time Uri Party is trying to recapture some favor in the voting population by seeking special inquiries into the base handover deal - in a time when the news is frequently about how USFK forced Korea to take over the bases even though green monsters were going to sprout out of them because they were so highly toxic. And we’re getting this when the enviornment is one of the issues Uri is going to try to ride well into the presidential election cycle next year as the Land Partnership Plan slowly, at a real nice pace for Uri (and Green Korea and the press — and I guess movie makers if they want to make a trend out of The Host), unfolds month after month. And this is just the environment. If we through in The Screen Quota and Rice Farmers and the FTA - ………
I find it so funny how the Koreans forget we bailed them out of the IMF crisis. I know the respose even before I hit the button.
4 Trackbacks
[...] You know, I’m looking as foward to seeing Bong Joon-ho’s “The Host” as the next guy, but reading all the pre-release mumbo-jumbo about this being such a ground-breaking film, I couldn’t help but thinking that even if were were to acknowledge that it represents Korea’s first real “monster movie,” in the end, it’s a movie about a big ugly fish. [...]
“The Host”…
I’ve read two reviews by other bloggers about the new Korean blockbuster of the summer “The Host” or 괴물. Hopefully you can read both posts and both comment threads (one in English and one in Korean) that have developed under each…
[...] Why does this not surpise me in the least? As most of you know, the movie The Host is about a monster coming out of the Han river and the cause of said monster is the dumping of pollutants into the river by evil USFK. Big deal, right? It’s just a movie, right? Entertainment, and not to be taken literally, right? Wrong. [...]
[...] Haisan says it best: [...]