The Film
When I was a young boy, part of my after-school ritual would frequently include coming home and turning on my television to watch the local independent channel's afternoon broadcast of some Japanese monster movie, such as one of the numerous Godzilla films (dubbed into English, of course), while munching on some unhealthy snack or the other. After a day's worth of grueling schoolwork, authoritarian teachers, and facing a stack of textbooks filled with hundreds of pages of tiny print - which may or may not have been taken on - it was a pleasure to lose myself into a fantastic world of mutant creatures, strange worlds, and weird scientists. It was unapologetic B-movie creature feature fare for certain, and it was of no concern that my window into these worlds was a little CRT television with a 13" screen, no remote control, and an over-the-air antenna pulling in the signal -- static and all.
Following in this same tradition, from South Korea comes director/co-writer Bong Joon-ho's Gwoemul (literally translated as Monster) known to U.S. audiences as The Host. Bong brings the B-movie into the realm of big-budget, highly stylized Hollywood features aided by a team a of U.S. special effects artists and his own cited influences of Ridley Scott's Alien.
Right from the beginning, we are given the usual strained explanation of how the mutant creature came to be (in this case expired formaldehyde poured down a drain that pollutes the Han River) and also a hint at the socio-political themes that underlay the film's plot. Not satisfied to merely give us a film about a creature on a rampage, Bong offers up a film with political, environmental, and family commentary. Although he may not fully succeed at exploring such themes beyond a surface level, they still offer much needed substance to a genre that can easily become absurd. There are references to the hubris of U.S. foreign policy, such as when the United States declares the creature is a "host" for a deadly virus which has killed one of its soldiers and causes a forced quarantine throughout the city of Seoul, but it is later revealed that the U.S. lied about the virus. There is also the United States government's insistence upon releasing a deadly toxic gas named "Agent Yellow" to kill the creature and the virus, but which is also harmful to humans.
What really separates The Host from the rest of the genre, however, is its focus on a disparate, dysfunctional family coming together to save to save one of their own against seemingly insurmountable difficulties. The Park family are central to the film's story. They own a food stand near the Han river and early in the film, their youngest member, Hyun-seo (Ko Ah-sung), daughter of Gang-du (Song Kang-ho) is taken by the creature. Gang-du receives a call on his cell phone from his daughter and the family realizes she is still alive. Gang-du, patriarch Hie-bong (Byeon Hie-bong) and Gang-du's two siblings, brother Nam-il (Park Hae-il) and sister Nam-joo ( Bae Du-na) are forced to band together and break out of the government quarantine facility keeping them captive. Overcoming their petty differences, bickering, and longstanding feuds in order to save the life of someone they all love, the family outruns the pursuing military, who believe them to be a threat in spreading the virus. For the life of the thirteen-year-old Hyun-seo, they all put their own lives at risk, without hesitation. They work together as single unit, whereas before, they were barely a family. Bong uses the adversity in The Host to highlight issues of the family unit, and that is ultimately what makes the film the most thrilling and effective.
The Picture
Magnolia Home Entertainment have brought The Host to Blu-ray Disc in a superb high definition 1080p/24 VC-1 encoding in its original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1. Finding fault with this transfer is nearly impossible. With a look that is sometimes intentionally drab and de-saturated, and other times bold and vibrant -- the latter particularly in the bright day-lit scenes or in the Park family's restaurant -- The Host on Blu-ray is filled with excellent amounts of fine detail and a marvelous film-like quality. In the opening rainstorm scene on the bridge, every droplet of rain can be seen, but it doesn't end there. Close-ups on character's faces reveal every pore and every individual strain of stubble. Even background detail is exceptional.
Black levels are deep and inky, yet in the films frequent nighttime and underground sewer scenes shadow detail remains flawless and nearly three-dimensional. Daylight scenes (purposely filmed with a blown out contrast) reveal a spectacular array of vibrant colors that pop from the screen. The sharpness of the transfer captures a fine level of film grain (grain haters beware) and maintains the intentionally gritty look of the film. If there is one flaw to be found, it is that the high level of detail captured in this high definition transfer reveals the less-than-realistic CG effects of "the monster" and can perhaps lead to a slight disruption in the suspension of disbelief. With that minor quibble aside, this is reference quality material.
The Sound
Magnolia have offered a wide array of audio options on this Blu-ray Disc release. Korean uncompressed PCM 5.1 (48kHz/16-bit), DTS-HD HR (High Resolution) 5.1, and Dolby Digital 5.1 audio options are available as well as the same configurations in English dubs. I listened to the original-language, Korean uncompressed PCM 5.1 mix with English subtitles engaged for the purposes of this review as well as going back and sampling the DTS-HD HR 5.1 in certain scenes. For anyone who doesn't know, DTS-HD HR is the lossy iteration of the DTS-HD codec. Though not as widely used and heralded as its much-lauded lossless relative DTS-HD MA (Master Audio), it is still a very high quality audio codec with double the bitrate of the legacy DTS codec (3Mbps vs. 1.5Mbps). But, enough of the lesson on audio codecs -- onto the actual mix.
The Host is a wonder of sound design. From the opening scene in an empty laboratory, we are treated with big, clear dialogue with an open, ambient soundstage that fills all the channels and gives the entire mix a cohesiveness rarely attained in home theatre, and it never lets up. Again, during the film’s opening rainstorm, where Mr. Yoon jumps off the bridge, sounds of rain and thunder fill the room and dialogue is never lost, always full, and always clear.
There is rarely a moment when the surround channels aren't being utilized for everything from the sounds of screaming crowds, to traffic noises, the reverberant sounds of rooms and the sewer where the creature dwells, or even conversation as the camera pans away while the dialogue pans with it to the side or rear. This is also a mix where low frequencies are in abundance. When the creature moves, you don't just hear it, but feel it thumping through your body; you feel the ground shake.
Special effects sound realistic and the mix's mastering is relaxed, with easy high frequencies that do not contribute to listener fatigue, and a tempered amount of limiting so that dynamic range is well maintained, from the quietest whisper to the loudest boom. If you are looking for a mix to demonstrate your home theatre gear, then move this to the top of the list -- it's that good.
Listening to the DTS-HD HR version of the same mix wasn't nearly as revelatory, unfortunately. I hesitate to blame it all on the codec, because it sounded so different that I would venture a guess that it may actually be a completely different mastering of the same material and therefore not a fair comparison. There seemed to be a veil over the sound. High frequencies were muted, dialogue was not quite as clear and the soundstage was less well defined. The low frequencies, which in the PCM mix were so robust, seemed a little weak in this DTS-HD HR version as well.
The Extras
In one respect Magnolia Home Entertainment can be commended for bringing The Host to Blu-ray with a plentiful amount of extras, but in another they can be chided for offering them only in standard definition. Of course, if that was for the benefit of improved picture quality or the addition of another high-quality audio codec such as the DTS-HD HR mixes that are available here, then they can and should be forgiven.
The majority of the extras here offer a wealth of information on the creative process of director Bong Joon-ho and the painstaking work that went into filming The Host, particularly the sewer scenes, which were filmed on location. The extras do become just a bit tiresome and bogged down in minutiae after a while and there is some crossover on a good portion of the information.
The extras included on this release are:
• Commentary with Director Bong Joon-ho -- This is what amounts to a standard audio commentary, with all the details of the filmmaking process – it covers much of the points that are mentioned in the supplemental materials elsewhere on the disc. If you don't listen to it, you won't be missing much.
• Making of The Host with Director Bong Joon-ho (4:3/standard definition) -- In this nearly ten-minute long featurette, the director discusses his influences for creating The Host, such as the film Signs and stories about the Loch Ness monster. The filmmaking crew also discuss their thorough task of scouting locations around Seoul for filming.
• Memories of the Sewer (4:3/standard definition) -- The actors and filmmakers discuss in detail the unpleasant and arduous experience of filming on location in the sewers during the winter where they not only risked electrocution. But also any number of diseases and parasitic infections. It was revealed in this featurette that the entire crew, not surprisingly, had to undergo an extensive course of vaccinations before filming in the sewers.
• Physical Special Effects (4:3/standard definition) -- A behind the scenes look at the pre-production testing for the physical effects that would eventually be used in the film before having CG effects applied, such as the use of a barrel drum filled with 500kg (.5 tons) of cement and dropped into the river to simulate the splash of the creature diving into the water.
• Storyboards (4:3/standard definition) -- Storyboard sketches for a few key scenes from the film.
• Designing the Creature (4:3/standard definition) -- In this featurette the director discusses the evolution if the creature's design, how he wanted it to have a "realistic" size, and how Ridley Scott's Alien had an influence on his perception of what the creature should be like.
• Puppet Animatronics (4:3/standard definition) -- The building of the robotic head of the creature used in for certain scenes in the film.
• Animating the Creature (4:3/standard definition) -- This is a look at the different layers of CG effects that went into the scene where the creature makes its first appearance. There is no dialogue in this extra.
• Bringing the Creature to Life (4:3/standard definition) -- Further discussion of the CG work that went into designing the creature, and the South Korean production crew's involvement with The Orphanage, the U.S.-based computer graphics company that did the final CG work on The Host. Director Bong Joon-ho discusses how important and helpful it was to him to find so many talented young artists in South Korea who were able to do the majority of the animatics and plates in Korea before sending the film to The Orphanage to have special effects added which allowed him to keep the budget down.
• The Family: Main Cast Interviews (4:3/standard definition) -- The lead cast members discuss their roles in the film, their time filming and their appreciation for the director and the other cast members.
• Training the Actors (4:3/standard definition) -- A brief behind-the-scenes look at the actors being taught to shoot their weapons.
• Gag Reel (4:3/standard definition) -- Silly CG effects, bloopers and outtakes.
• Korean Trailer (4:3/standard definition) -- The original Korean theatrical trailer for the film, which unfortunately is of very poor picture quality on this disc.
• Deleted Scenes (1.85:1/standard definition) -- Fourteen deleted scenes in all and none of them add anything to the story, it's a good thing they were deleted. Most of them consist of brief snippets of the creature lasting only a few seconds.
Final Thoughts
South Korea's director Bong Joon-ho has found the answer to the Japanese monster movies and arguably outdone them by creating something with slightly more depth than any Godzilla movie ever had. This Blu-ray Disc release offers up the film with reference quality picture and sound that should not be missed by any home theatre enthusiast.
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