In this blog post, we’ll take a look at how Bong Joon-ho’s The Host ushered in the “10 million audience era” of Korean cinema and how it changed the perception of the kaiju genre.
What ‘The Host’ left behind for Korean cinema
The record
13.097 million people. This is the final number of moviegoers mobilized by The Host. It became the highest-grossing Korean film of all time, surpassing the previous record of 12.312 million set by Lee Joon-ik’s phenomenon-making “The King’s Men,” and surpassing the previous record of 11.774 million set by “Taegeukgi Waving” (2004). The record, which seemed unbreakable for a while, was broken in just five months with the release of Bong Joon-ho’s The Host.
Opening on July 27, 2006, on more than 630 screens nationwide, The Host surpassed The King’s Man’s record on September 2, and ended its run on November 14 with a final attendance of 13.097 million. This marks the first time that four Korean films – “Silmido,” “The Tiger,” “The King’s Men,” and “The Host” – have surpassed the 10 million audience mark, signaling the arrival of the “10 million audience era. This record would be broken several more times throughout the 2010s and 2020s, and would serve as a benchmark that would change the scale and expectations of the Korean film industry as a whole.
Directors and actors
From this point on, there was a clear trend of choosing movies based on the name of the director rather than the name of the actor. Of course, star directors have always existed under the premise that “cinema is the director’s art,” but with the advent of a series of so-called “well-made commercial films” that were both artistic and commercially successful, audiences began to support not only actors but also directors.
Bong Joon-ho, the director of “The Host,” has solidified his place in the movie industry with just three films. While his debut feature, Dogs of Flanders, was only noticed by film insiders, he gained public recognition with Memories of Murder and became a top box office hit by challenging the Korean kaiju genre, which was considered a weak genre in the Korean film industry, with The Host. Since then, he has expanded his stature as a Korean director to unprecedented levels through his performances at international film festivals and the acclaim of the global film industry.
Personally, I don’t think The Host would have seen the light of day without Song Kang-ho, an intuitive actor who elevates the ordinary to the extraordinary. In The Host, his first film since Antarctic Diary, he plays Park Kang-doo, a father who responds to the sound of “Dad!” even when he’s sleeping in a puddle of dog grease that could hold a dime. He is also a typical small-town citizen who is quarantined in the hospital after innocently reporting that The Host’s blood is on his clothes, and can’t even speak properly in front of the police when he learns that his daughter is alive.
For Song Kang-ho, who has provided a rich facial expression in his previous films, Park Kang-du could not have been a more appropriate role. The smell of “the burning inside of a parent who has lost a child” reverberated off-screen, and audiences who watched The Host couldn’t imagine Kang-doo as anyone other than Song Kang-ho. But his performance in this film is more than just naturalism. In the film’s climactic scene, when he asks, “Who are you? Do you know Hyun-seo? Have you been with Hyun-seo?”, Song’s intuitive emotions and senses explode. It’s why directors lined up to work with him then and now, hungry for his ability to elevate ordinary lines into masterpieces.
A Quick Look at ‘The Host’
‘The Host’ is an obvious monster movie on paper, so the inherent emotion audiences should expect to feel is fear. But what you’ll find in The Host is more than horror, it’s family, it’s love for humanity, it’s a warning against environmental pollution, and it’s a mockery of power. There have even been interpretations that it is an anti-American movie. Thanks to this multi-layered interpretation, “The Host” has been recognized by both domestic and international critics as a masterpiece that takes the kaiju genre to the next level, as well as a family film and a satire.
The plot of The Host goes like this On a sunny, peaceful day on the banks of the Han River, Kang-doo (Song Kang-ho) is napping at his father’s (Byun Hee-bong) Han River concession stand when he is jolted awake by the sound of “Dad” in his sleep. His daughter Hyun-seo (Go Ah-sung), who is now a junior high school student, is furious. She’s upset about her old cell phone, which she’s embarrassed to take out, and her uncle (Park Hae-il), who showed up at a parent-teacher conference reeking of alcohol. Kang-doo pulls out a bowl of instant noodles filled with coins he’s been secretly saving, but Hyun-seo is unimpressed and distracted by her aunt’s (Bae Doo-na) archery match at the national championships, which has just begun.
That’s where The Host comes in. While delivering squid to the banks of the Han River, Kang-doo stumbles upon a strange sight amidst the milling crowd. Something he’s never seen before is hanging from the Han River bridge and moving. People are fascinated and snap a series of pictures with their cell phones and digital cameras, but it’s not long before the mysterious creature, The Host, climbs onto the bank and starts trampling and biting people indiscriminately. In the chaos that quickly ensues, Kang-doo manages to grab his daughter Hyun-seo and run away, but as the screaming crowd disperses, he loses his grip on her hand. In that moment, The Host snatches her up as if she’s been waiting for it, and disappears into the Han River.
We must find Hyun-seo somewhere. The Host’s appearance causes the entire Han River to close down, paralyzing the city. Having lost their home, livelihood, and most importantly, their family, in a single day, the Kang-Doo family, with no money and no connections, sets out to find Hyun-Seo somewhere in the Han River, which has been declared a dangerous zone. After many twists and turns, including the entire family becoming wanted, they encounter The Host, and a battle with The Host ensues. When they find her, she’s dead, and the enraged family fights back against The Host with Molotov cocktails, arrows, and the grief of a father who has lost his daughter.
Back at the Han River Canteen in a snowy winter. Still wary of the Han River, Kang-doo shares a hot meal with Se-joo, who was found with the dead Hyun-seo, and the movie ends.
About kaiju movies
Is ‘The Host’ a kaiju movie
What is a genre movie? A genre is a group of stories that share certain plot rules and conventions. Audiences can roughly predict what the story will be based on the genre name alone, and because of this property, movie marketers often put the genre name in front of the movie title to attract a specific audience. For example, “The conventional love story ‘You Are My Destiny’”.
While this may sound a bit self-conscious to some of us, the distributor that distributed The Host in the U.S. actually marketed it to a specific target audience, including B-movie fans and kaiju movie fans. The rules and conventions of a genre are the very essence of the genre, and genre fans choose to watch genre films to enjoy these conventions.
But when conventions become stale, genres lose their vitality. Genres need rule-breakers, devices that betray the audience’s expectations, and this is what we call a genre twist. Genre twists are a strategy to create a more engaging genre movie by subverting clichés. Bong Joon-ho’s “The Host” subverted genre conventions, and while there were questions about how well it would translate overseas, with its foregrounding of Korean familial love and folklore, it functioned as a compelling genre film, at least for Korean audiences.
Of course, the jury is still out on whether or not The Host can be considered a kaiju movie in the traditional sense, but if you look at the basic structure of humans battling mutated creatures, it’s hard to argue with the classification. So what is the significance of kaiju movies in the modern world, where the host is human and the human is the host?
The kaiju genre started with cheesy B-movies
In Ed Wood, a movie about the life of the late, great director Ed Wood, there is a scene that symbolizes the beginning of the kaiju genre. In the movie, Bela Lugosi, an actress specializing in low-budget horror movies, fights a giant, fake, paper-cut octopus alone on set. As this scene suggests, kaiju movies were heavily influenced by the B-movies of the 1950s and ’60s, which were often rushed to be “filler” for feature films. They were the kind of movies that were consumed by teenagers in drive-in theaters, laughing and gossiping mindlessly.
Roger Corman, the “godfather of the B-movie,” pioneered the monster movie genre with his vampire plant-based horror flicks such as The Hole in the Ground. Steven Spielberg’s Jaws, which kicked off the Hollywood kaiju blockbuster in the late 1970s, was described by New York Times reporter Vincent Canby as “nothing more than a Roger Corman movie with a bigger budget.”
What genre are kaiju movies?
It’s difficult to categorize kaiju movies as a genre. The same monster can be transformed into a variety of genres, including science fiction, horror, comedy, and more. For example, the first installment of Alien is more of a horror movie, while the second installment is categorized as a sci-fi action-adventure. There are also many comedic kaiju movies, such as The Host, which has black comedy elements. Freaks, in which a giant spider terrorizes humans, Starfish, in which a mysterious mollusk crawls underground, and Flashd, in which a giant crocodile appears, are all comedies in the guise of monster movies.
Monsters are our alter egos
The unknown creature embodies the primal human instinct of attacking and fearing others who enter the enclosure without reason. The audience feels fear when facing the creature, relief when the protagonist defeats it, and sometimes compassion for the creature that struggles to survive only to be beaten.
Furthermore, the creatures in the movie can be a mirror image of humans or another reflection of modern society. The Host, which destroys and kills, symbolizes the violence within humans who harm others for trivial reasons, while the humans who kill it represent the good. This is similar to the structure of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, where the good and evil that coexist in one person are represented by two separate characters.
So, what about the movie The Host?
First, it’s important to clarify the genre of The Host. The genre of The Host is reminiscent of Godzilla, with its origin story of a poisonous substance discharged into the Han River, and there are some who see it as a typical monster movie. However, The Host does not feature an absolute monster that humans are powerless to defeat like Godzilla or Yongari. In terms of style and narrative, it’s closer to Hollywood horror films like Alien, The Thing, and Mimic.
Therefore, I will call it a ‘monster movie’ to distinguish it from the conventional ‘kaiju movie’. This is because it is a film that has the outward appearance of a monster movie, but succeeds in twisting the genre through the specificity of the family and the Han River.
How does ‘The Host’ twist the kaiju genre?
For Korean audiences in the 1990s and 2000s, Shim Hyung-rae was probably the first name that came to mind when they thought of kaiju movies. While his efforts to keep trying new things in the Korean film industry should be appreciated, it is also regrettable that he was unable to completely escape the limitations of children’s films. In particular, Yongari was a typical kaiju movie that relied on special effects like King Kong and Godzilla, but failed to twist the genre.
In that sense, the appearance of ‘The Host’ was a welcome change in the Korean film industry, which was dominated by the perception that ‘kaiju movies are only for the serious’. It succeeded in twisting the genre and garnering both audience interest and critical acclaim. So, what were the factors behind its success?
Familiarity and accessibility
No matter how much Godzilla rampages in the middle of Manhattan, it’s hard for audiences in the Korean metropolitan area to see it as anything more than breaking news. It’s hard to get deeply emotionally invested in a disaster in a place you’ve never been. In “The Host,” however, the concession stand where I buy drinks is shattered, The Host rampages under the bridge where I take the bus, and The Host stomps up the street where I ride my bike.
I think the most important element of a horror or monster movie is to evoke the emotion of “that could happen to me”. This emotional connection and empathy is a key part of what makes a movie fun.
The much-talked-about graphics and sound
Personally, I enjoy picking apart computer graphics and scientific errors in movies. I remember watching “The Flag Flies” and thinking, “Wow, Korea can make a movie like this,” only to be disappointed by the airplane scene in the second half. Nevertheless, The Host is very well done overall, with the exception of the final scene where The Host dies.
The design of The Host embodies exactly what the director wanted to convey, and the details of its movements and the way it blends in with the background are natural. The sound is also impressive, with Lee Byung-woo’s OST and the echoing footsteps when The Host first appears more about overwhelming the audience than simply surprising them. This was crucial to effectively conveying The Host’s presence.
Korean sentiment
I think Spielbergian family values are more powerful than Hollywood superheroes when it comes to box office success in Korea. The reason why so-called gangster comedies are consumed repeatedly is because they stick to the formula of 70 percent laughs and 30 percent tears. “The Host” has the right combination of these elements. It has black comedic laughs and satire, a family man trying to save his daughter, granddaughter, and nephew, and minimal action.
Lead actor Song Kang-ho called it “a very well-made family entertainment movie,” while director Bong Joon-ho described it as “the story of Kang-doo growing up to be a father.” The story of a scattered family coming together to overcome a crisis following the invasion of The Host resonates strongly with Korean sentiment. Instead of the stereotypical Hollywood heroes, the family members who seem to have a screw loose were enough to connect with the audience.
Closing thoughts
The movie’s narrative leaves a lot of things unexplained. It’s hard to say that the plot is well-placed, and there are definitely some things that are left unexplained. The final scene in particular feels a bit underdeveloped, both narratively and emotionally.
Nevertheless, the conclusion is clear. ‘The Host’ is entertaining. It successfully twists the kaiju genre in a way that was thought impossible in Korea. It’s also worth reflecting on how the movie contributed to the genre’s subsequent expansion and industrial challenges. Just like that moment after watching “Shiri” when we realized, “Oh, this is possible in Korea,” “The Host” remains another renewal of what is possible in Korean cinema.
