Meet the Park family, proprietors of
a snack stand along the touristy Han River in the South Korean capital of
Seoul:
Gang-Du, the eldest son of the generous and caring widower
Hie-bong, Gang-Du’s wife left him with their precocious young daughter Hyun-seo
years ago and left him emotionally arrested at that stage in his life.
Nam-Joo, Hie-bong’s youngest, a champion archer with a penchant
for choking when the pressure is on.
Nam-il, the educated activist middle child who has been unable to
find gainful employment despite his education and who drinks to cover up his
anger.
Hie-bong, the gentle patriarch who is struggling to care for his
family economically, and who is ready to fight to hold them together.
Hyun-seo, youngest of the Park clan, trying to succeed in school
despite a difficult upbringing and a father who, though he tries his best,
fails her in many ways.
While the Parks work their snack stand, miles away an American
military scientist examines the contents of his laboratory with his Korean
assistant, sees hundreds of bottles of chemicals he deems to be spoiled, and
has a conversation that culminates in the words “That’s right, let’s dump them
in the Han River” - we know this can’t be good. Sure enough, shortly the local
fisherman begin to notice fewer fish, and some of the ones they catch seem…
different, perhaps with more tails than they usually have, and also perhaps a
little more bite-y than usual. A man preparing to jump off a bridge sees a huge
black shape moving in the water but can’t tell what it is.
And instead of spending half the film building up to the reveal of
the monster as in most monster classics (Alien, Jaws, King
Kong), we’re suddenly right into the thick of it - a mutated, amphibious
monster that resembles a giant, dangerous tadpole with legs and too many teeth
is running rampant along the walkways of the Han, crushing and flinging aside
onlookers, grabbing some with its mouth or its tail, going in and out of the
water. Naturally this happens right by the Park family stand at the most
crowded and busy time of day, and as the monster runs wild through the crowd
Gang-Du sees young Hyun-seo in danger and springs into action intent on
protecting his family, one of the few onlookers who dares to assault the beast
instead of running away screaming. But the monster nabs Hyun-seo with its tail,
flees back to the water and off to its lair. Shortly afterward those who have
come into contact with the monster are quarantined by the military because of
their exposure to a virus the beast is carrying, and this includes the entire
Park family. And so begins the meat of the film - the family coming together
over their longstanding personal difficulties to find Hyun-seo. Which means
that they not only have to find the monster's hidden lair in the city, but also
evade the authorities who want them locked up and away from the general
populace as they prepare to test a new chemical agent to destroy the beast -
and possibly sell it for chemical warfare in the future.
Gang-Du (Bong regular Kang-ho Song) is both funny and touching as
the eldest son, a slacker father lamenting his departed wife and dotingly
focused on his daughter Hyun-seo (superbly played by Ko Asung), suddenly awakened
out of his torpor to rescue his captured child. The film follows out many
threads of the progress of different family members - Gang-du’s younger archer
sister, his activist younger brother, and his father Hie-bong trying to keep
them all together (and who, like his surprisingly active slacker son, is a real
fighter when it comes to the monster). And of course there's resourceful young
Hyun-seo, cool-headed under threat of being eaten by the mutant tadpole
threatening all of Seoul.
Bong Joon-Ho's ease in genre - and also rejection of it - is a
major plus here. Like all his films (that I've seen), he starts with what
appears to be a straightforward genre piece and slowly sends it off the rails
until it's something else entirely. Is this a thriller about a government
cover-up? A family drama? A giant monster horror film? A black comedy? The
answer is yes to all of those things. And the reason I've spent so much time
talking about the family is because Bong took the time to think about them as
well - he invests what could be a tawdry CGI-centric genre piece with real,
flawed, believable people (helped immensely by an excellent cast who make us
care about their foibles, about their problems), and helps us believe it when a
giant killer tadpole snatches their daughter to its hidden lair to be eaten at
a later time.
If you need a great horror film for your October viewing, check
this one. If you need to see the earlier work of this year's Palme d'Or winning
director, check this one (and also check out the superb Memories of Murder, itself another genre-defying genre film - this
time a police procedural) before you go see the excellent Parasite when it opens. But really, Bong Joon-Ho hasn't stepped
wrong in anything I've yet seen - I started with The Host and have yet to be disappointed, and you won't be either.
-
Patrick Brown
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