The Host (Two-Disc Collector's Edition)

This DVD is Region 4 and the special features (or lack thereof) may not be on DVDs from different regions, you have been warned.

Growing up I used to watch monster movies, whether they were old or new, black or white, as long as it had some kind of creature going buck wild in it I was there.

They come in two basic flavors; the ‘Nature run amok’ variety which usually consists of some sort of real animal that’s decided to go on a violent killing spree, normally on a town or a group of people, think Jaws, think Anaconda, think Komodo, think Arachnophobia, hell even The Birds and Jurassic Park could be tucked in there somewhere.

Then there’s the second variety, this one sees a genetically engineered or otherwise mutated animal of sorts go on a bloody rampage, Eight Legged Freaks, Cemetery Gates, and Frankenfish spring to mind, but I’d be committing monster movie blasphemy if I didn’t mention the mother of all monster movies, the crème de la crème, the one that started it all, Godzilla.

The Host is quite possibly one of, if not, the best foreign monster movie ever made since the days of the giant lizards legendary rampage.

Dangerous chemicals carelessly dumped down a drain end up in the nearby river system they mutate a fish (I assume) into a big ass fish with lots of tails, lots of mouths, lots of arms and one hell of a digestive system.

It doesn’t take long before the creature makes its way onto land, taking a number of victims in one of the coolest monster attack scenes ever committed to film.

The Korean government quarantines those present, including the family of a little girl taken in the attack. Gang-du, his brother, sister and their father are determined to find her and kill the creature responsible.

The beauty of The Host is that it’s much more then your average monster movie, whilst the creature does play a huge roll, it is the family that pushes the plot, their struggle to find their loved one in the midst of an attack, all the while being hunted by everyone else.

The Host is a strange blend of monster movie, mixed with family drama and more then a little slapstick comedy thrown in for flavor.

So onto the DVD itself, I hope you aren’t busy!

The first disc contains a slew of trailers including three Korean trailers for The Host, the US trailer and the UK trailer, also included are trailers for other movies released under the Eastern Eye brand; Shadowless Sword, The Myth, Exiled and Godzilla: Final Wars (damn it, I missed that one on TV the other night).

Onto the second disc and we get the meat of this hearty little package.

The Making of The Host has seven parts, the first ‘Making of with Bong Joon-Ho’ is the director talking about the films origins, where he came up with the concepts etc. ‘Storyboards’ are a collection of storyboards pieced together with sounds to oshow how the scenes are meant to play out. ‘Direction of Bong Joon-Ho’ is a bit of a brown nosed piece where cast and crew talk about their beloved director.

‘Memories of the Sewer’, like the last part only replacing the directors name with that of the sewer they shot in and instead of happy thoughts there are those of distain and vileness, tapeworms, diseases and rats…sounds fun.

‘Film Departments’ is a bit misleading as it’s mainly about the set design, it’s kept short and sweet. ‘Physical Special Effects’ looks at the effects of The Host which were done practically (duh), stunts and such are covered. The last on is ‘Sound Effects’….they cast someone to voice the monsters noises? Only in Korea!

‘Host in Australia’ consists of two parts, the first ‘Interview with Director Bong Joon-Ho’ is just that, an interview (I assume conducted in the land downunder) where Joon-Ho talks about his career as a filmmaker, having only made three so far, how he got into it and the general questions about the making of The Host.

The second part is ‘Q&A at Melbourne Premiere’, again it’s fairly easy to guess what it’s about, it’s a 20 minute Q&A with Joon-Ho, interesting stuff but man is the quality crap, it sounds like it was recorded on a mobile phone!

There’s a six part feature on ‘The Creature’ which looks at everything from the concept of the creature to the various designs and different looks it had, the animatronics and CGI used to bring it to like. For some reason there’s a gag reel included which is mostly bit and pieces of the Orphanage special effects guys screwing around with the creature animations.

‘The Crew’ is a three part feature on the crew behind The Host, ‘The Staff’ is a very strange…something, lets just say it’d satisfy even Tarantino’s foot fetish.

‘Production Team’, sees the guys being the camera talking about their roles on the film and the experiences of set life (at least for those who were on set).

‘Kevin’s Korean Life’ is a somewhat documentary of Kevin Rafferty, the visual effects supervisor, who was a none Korean crew member living the Korean way of life.

We get a look at the characters of The Host (possibly the most important part of the movie itself) via yet another three part feature, ‘Casting Tapes’ looks more at the casting of the children rather then the more central roles, ‘Character’s’ makes up for the last part by being centered around the adult family members and the actors/actresses playing them. ‘Training the Actors’ goes behind the scenes at the training process some of the actors had to go through to get ready for the movie, archery and firearms training, do you realize that movies made in the west wouldn’t even bother! You don’t see Lindsay Lohan practicing to play a slut…oh wait a minute.

Are we there yet?

Well almost, we’ve reached the Deleted Scenes section of the disc, a bit more then 20 minutes of them too be exact, there’s nothing too important here, in fact some of the scenes don’t seem to even fit anywhere in the movie itself!

‘Saying Goodbye to The Host’ is a touching little piece featuring those responsible for the film talking about how much fun it was making the film and how they feel about being involved in what really is a great movie.

We’ve reach the bottom of Santa’s sack (no not that one) and we’re given a Still Gallery as a parting gift, Production Stills, Concept Art and Animatics ahoy.

Finally we have a DVD release which deserves the title ‘SPECIAL EDITION’ not only a great film but a great DVD to go with it.

There just isn’t any more that you could ask for…come to think of it, a commentary would have been nice! But then again, after all the material we’ve been given there isn’t much left to be told so screw it, I am happy to add this to my ever growing collection.

MOVIE: 4 out of 5

DVD: 5 out of 5

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