Song Kang-ho,
Byun Hee-bong,
Park Hae-il,
Du-na Bae,
Ko A-sung
... see more 
When a young girl is snatched away from her father by a horrifying giant monster that emerges from the River Han to wreak havoc on Seoul, her entire family sets out to locate the beast and bring their... read more
Directed by: Joon-ho Bong
Release Date: March 9, 2007
Keywords:
action,
foreign,
horror,
scary,
freaky,
overrated,
different,
grossing,
political,
monster,
creature,
monster movie,
best monster,
good monster,
korean monster,
Comic Sans ,
Times New Roman,
Little Miss Sunshine,
South Korean
DVD Release Date: July 24, 2007
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Stats: 10,934 reviews
Your Rating
Flixster Reviews (10,934)
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May 11, 2008This was a top notch monster movie and even though the dubbing was pretty bad and it more than likely added to the confusion it was a pretty solid thrill ride.
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July 1, 2011fb100001050230219Just....awesome! A great monster film with its own subtle sense of humour to it. Bong Joon-Ho's direction is superb, which shows in the way he directs some of the most intense monster attack scenes I've seen and providing us with a few memorable shots. This is not only one of my ... read more
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May 14, 2011The Host is at times very odd. But overall it is a fun and entertaining creature feature. It belongs to a genre where it is easy to fail miserably. The Host doesn't fail, but rises above many other creature features because the movie isn't a pure horror comedy like many of the ot... read more
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April 15, 2011The Host is a pretty cool, if uneven, South Korean monster flick.
The premise is simple enough. Dangerous chemicals intentionally leaked into the Han River produce a freakish aquatic mutated animal that goes on a rampage, apparently eating a lot of people. Including the daughte... read more -
January 28, 2011Epic Korean creature-feature. I found this to be entertaining, original and totally unpredictable. Special effects were very good and the mutant amphibious monster unique looking and very menacing. It is quite an odd film though with a mixture of slapstick humour and serious emot... read more
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October 14, 2010Don't ask me why, but I got the biggest kick out of this movie. It was a riot! I don't think that it was ever meant to be a serious movie, but instead more of a dark comedy. I just thought the whole thing was hysterical.
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September 21, 2010It was not entirely enjoyable because there were some dull moments which was hard to avoid, but it was not that bad either. I did liked it. But I found one odd scene which was where the whole family gathers and cry and roll on the floor. Was that a joke? Didn't found that funny t... read more
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August 2, 2010Like a mix of Little Miss Sunshine and Cloverfield, this South Korean genre mix follows a rather dysfunctional family through their battle against a mutated river creature who kidnapped their youngest. Most scenes including the monster are actually pretty exciting and well done. ... read more
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April 9, 2010An exquisite piece of monster movie cinema. If King Kong created the genre, I would have to say that The Host perfects it. There are some tricky spots with the dubbing, but that aside, this is hands down a unique approach to a genre that is still considered B-movie fodder. To ... read more
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November 18, 2009Problem being is the poor CGI to film transition and a slightly strange translation (or a bad script) but if you like world cinema and subtitled movies and enjoy trhller suspense in a good humoured fashion then watch! I really enjoyed it, laughed A LOT (at the jokes) and really d... read more
Critic Reviews
April 1, 2007
Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail
April 1, 2007
Jim Emerson, Chicago Sun-Times
A horror thriller, a political satire, a dysfunctional family comedy, and a touching melodrama, Bong Joon-ho's The Host is also one helluva monster movie. Full Review
March 30, 2007
Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star
Bravely shifting tones from the horrific to the slapstick and back again, Bong Joon-ho has made a movie that's comprised almost equally of family sitcom, political indictment, high-urban paranoia and ... Full Review
March 23, 2007
Tom Long, Detroit News
Maybe this is actually a treatise on the dissonance between East and West, science and nature, promise and tragedy. Nah. It's just a dumb, crappy horror movie that wants to be celebrated as such. Full Review
March 23, 2007
Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press
The film's limber and inventive director Joon-ho Bong keeps The Host creeping and leaping for its entire two hours, which are filled with incident after incident, alternately terrifying, ridiculous, s... Full Review
March 16, 2007
Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
Individual stories bog down the film's pace, but The Host recovers quickly to redefine horror for the new millennium. This you have to see.
March 15, 2007
Dana Stevens, Slate
The movie pops up out of nowhere, grabs you in its big, messy tentacles, and drags you down into murky depths, where social satire coexists with slapstick, and B-movie clichés mutate into complex meta... Full Review
March 14, 2007
Joe Baltake, Passionate Moviegoer
'The Host': A sneaky, spellbinding celebration of what movies are supposed to be all about. Full Review
March 12, 2007
Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper
It's unlike just about any other monster movie I've ever seen.
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The Host (Gwoemul)
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