After Godzilla, Before Hope: The Host Is the Monster Movie to Catch Up On

On November 5, thanks to MUBI, Hope arrives in Italian cinemas, the incredible film by Na Hong-jin presented at Cannes that begins as a monster movie before morphing into something quite surprising. On the 12th, the following week, Plaion distributes the beautiful Godzilla Minus Zero, another film that celebrates the legacy of the radioactive lizard that has dominated genre cinema for more than 70 years.
As coincidences are never so random, in these very days comes the news that a film which perhaps would not have existed without Godzilla will return to American theaters and without which Hope perhaps would not have been made: a film that turns twenty years old and, to best celebrate this birthday, has undergone the now almost inevitable 4K restoration.
The film in question is The Host, directed in 2006 by Bong Joon-ho, which remains to this day one of the finest works of this great and celebrated Korean director.
For those who do not have a precise idea of what is being talked about, The Host tells the story of a man named Gang-du (played by Song Kang-ho, who, to be clear, is also the lead actor of Parasite), a downtrodden father of a family who runs a street-food stall along the Han River in Seoul, and who from those waters witnesses a gigantic and terrifying amphibious creature emerge that begins to sow death and destruction: it is not Gang-du who must merely survive, but also to save his daughter who disappeared during one of the monster’s attacks, while the government tries to quarantine the entire urban area.
Just as Na did in Hope, The Host also constantly plays with the blend of tones and genres: from horror to comedy, passing through drama; and like Godzilla, it is a film that, in its own way, engages in a highly political reflection on the country’s history and on the American military and economic presence in Korea. Unfortunately at the moment in Italy it is not possible to watch The Host on any streaming service: we hope even more that this new distribution of the film (accompanied by a video conversation between Bong and Edgar Wright) can also be carried out in Italy.
In the meantime, here is the new trailer of The Host in its 4K restored version.