Comments on: Here’s a ‘Host’ for you

By: Zhang Fei

Zhang Fei — Sat, 29 Jul 2006 05:46:36 +0000

RK: Instead of evil U.S. soldiers pouring chemicals into the Han, you could have suitably “shifty” Koreans dumping industrial waste from the Hyundai Motor plant in Montgomery into the Big Muddy.

I can’t see that. The yellow peoples are touchy about negative portrayals on celluloid. I think evil US corporations would do the trick - both villains and henchmen would, of course, be lily-white, since white folks don’t take it personally.

By: Ray

Ray — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 04:01:36 +0000

“…with a lot of overlapping cast members and technical staff, beautiful yet grungy cinematography, excellent, pounding music score by Lee Byung-woo (TALE OF TWO SISTERS, RED SHOES)”

As if Memories of Murder wasn’t good enough… consider me fucking sold.

By: Origami

Origami — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 00:08:17 +0000

Talking about a remake of a remake, I like this film when it was called the “Alligator” (1980).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alligator_(film)

Mutated monster film is nothing new in Hollywood, It goes way back to the 50’s, I believe when Cold War and nuclear holocaust was the boogeyman. Mutated monster films in Hollywood seems to involve alligators for some reason or tomatoes.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080391/

By: Origami

Origami — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 23:56:52 +0000

My feeling is that the movie is kind of overrated.

http://www.koreanfilm.org/dc/d.....&page=

By: R. Elgin

R. Elgin — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 23:46:22 +0000

Bong’s comment certainly seems less than honest, especially considering the current “reality” in Korea and especially considering what goes into the creative process of making movies.

Bong’s alleged contention is like claiming that one fired a gun because their finger happened to be on the trigger and not because they wanted to shoot someone. The end result is the same.

By: michael

michael — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 23:14:25 +0000

Read an interview with Bong recently (can’t remember where right now) in which he said basically that a good genre movie has to have some basis in reality, i.e., current events, which explains to some extent why he put the USFK business in the film: that’s his “reality.” While I can accept that explanation (and agree about good genre movie=reality) it shows to me a naive perspective, that the USFK is the villain simply from expedience, because the Han River dumping incident is “reality” in Korea, without seeming to recognixe they way it might be interpreted by people like Mr. Marmot for example. Bong is obviously a talented director, so I wonder if he is not unaware of how that part of the film would be received.

By: bluejives

bluejives — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 18:26:40 +0000

Make it a larger body of water, and it could be MOBY DICK. There hasn’t been anything new under the sun for some time.

Someone should make a movie or a documentary about the Angry Expat in Korea, a far more interesting creature than some mutated fish.

By: bulgasari

bulgasari — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 15:36:11 +0000

Frequency, Il Mare, and Ditto (which is much more similar to Frequency than Il Mare, as it also features contact over decades via radio) were all released in 2000. Who was influencing who?

By: Haisan

Haisan — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 10:35:07 +0000

> Horror movie about an ugly fish in the lake?

Make it a larger body of water, and it could be MOBY DICK. There hasn’t been anything new under the sun for some time.

As for Hollywood remaking films that Korea already took, I give you FREQUENCY => IL MARE => THE LAKE HOUSE. See, that’s already been done, too.

By: Dram_man

Dram_man — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 09:20:57 +0000

Horror movie about an ugly fish in the lake? Sounds like we are talking about how to Hollywood remake a film that Korea took from Hollywood called Lake Placid.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0139414/