The Host

What it is

The Host is a feature film Bong Joon-ho released in 2006. It starts from a simple setup: an unidentified creature appears in Seoul's Han River, and a family running a snack kiosk on the riverbank is pulled into the event. On the surface it is a monster movie, but what sits at the centre of the frame is less the creature than a family that seems slightly hopeless and bickers constantly. Song Kang-ho, Byun Hee-bong, Park Hae-il, Bae Doona and Go Ah-sung play the family. It was Bong's feature after Memories of Murder, and the film that cemented his reputation as a director who blends genres.

How it bends monster-movie rules

The familiar monster movie builds tension by hiding the creature for as long as possible and revealing it big at the end. This film does nearly the opposite. The creature shows itself fairly early, in daylight on the riverbank, and the tension that follows comes less from asking what it is than from asking what these people can possibly do. Shifting attention from the monster's identity to the characters' situation means that even viewers who don't care for monster films can follow it as a family drama.

Laughter and fear in the same scene

One trait often cited in Bong's films is the odd laugh that cuts into a serious moment. Here, too, characters trip absurdly or act out of step in the middle of tragic scenes. The mismatch is less a device to break tension than a way of showing how clumsy people actually are in a crisis. The tonal shifts can feel strange at first; treating them as the director's signature makes the film much easier to settle into.

• The monster is shown early and in broad daylight
• Clumsy ordinary people replace heroes
• Tragedy and farce overlap in a single scene
• Institutions are portrayed as hard to trust

The social eye underneath

The opening is widely known to draw on a real incident in which toxic chemicals from a US military facility were released into the Han River. The film does not stop at denouncing that event, though. More weight goes to showing agencies that cling to procedure and control rather than helping the family, authorities that withhold information, and people left with no choice but to act on their own. The satire is fairly direct, so some viewers find it satisfying and others heavy-handed.

The Han River as a setting

The choice of the Han River matters. For people in Seoul it is an everyday place to walk and relax, and here it becomes, almost overnight, a sealed-off danger zone. Spaces that are familiar but rarely looked at closely, such as the undersides of bridges, the riverbanks and the storm drains, become the main locations. Viewers who know Seoul get the experience of a daily landscape turning strange; those who don't get a glimpse of the city's unusual geography.

Within Bong Joon-ho's work

The Host is a good link for understanding Bong's body of work. The eye on incompetent institutions seen in Memories of Murder and the interest in class and family later refined in Parasite are already present here. Watching his films in sequence makes the recurring concerns clearer.

• Memories of Murder: an era drawn through a police procedural
• The Host: family and institutions drawn through a monster film
• Mother: a thriller following one person's obsession
• Parasite: class drawn through two families

What to watch for the first time

Rather than waiting for the creature to appear, paying attention to who each family member is makes the film much richer. How characters who each seem to be lacking something reveal their usefulness in a crisis, and how they treat one another, is the real spine of the story. Small actions in the corners of the frame and the people in the background are also worth noticing. This director often builds atmosphere from details that seem unrelated to the main events.

Things to keep in mind

There are creature attacks and scenes where characters are in danger, so check the age rating before watching with younger viewers. Information about the ending and the characters' fates is widely available, so if you are watching for the first time, save the analysis pieces for afterwards. The computer-generated creature may look awkward in places by today's standards, but remembering that the film's strength lies in its characters and tone rather than its effects keeps that from getting in the way.