Citizen Rules...Cinemaesque Chat-n-Review

The Host (2006) Gwoemul (original title)
Director/Writer: Joon Ho Bong
Writers:
Cast: Kang-ho Song, Hie-bong Byeon, Hae-il Park
Genre: Action, Drama, Horror

After toxic chemicals are poured into Seoul's Han River a mutated monster emerges and begins attacking people. When a small girl is taken alive by the creature, her family does what it can to rescue her before it's too late.

I liked this one. It wasn't what I expected...I expected a 2 hour long movie with people being bit in half by a giant creature. Instead it had a lighter touch and focused more on a slightly dysfunctional but very likable Korean family. The film makers could have left the creature out of the film and I would have still liked the characters and the way the family interacted, the were interesting! It was nice seeing scenes inside Korea too.



The creature itself was pretty cool looking...I liked the way it moved on land, it couldn't walk well and would occasionally fall on it's belly. Nicely done CG.

The film itself had a very high quality look to it. Very cinematic with rich colors and lots of rain. You can tell it was well made. I watched the English dubbed version, which matched up pretty well. Though I would have liked the English voice actors to have a Korean accent.

It took me awhile to realize the film makers intended this to have light comic situations. What made that light comedy work is that it came out of the way people naturally react and was not slapstick.




Think of The Host as a Godzilla done up Korean style, with an ecliptic but realistic family added in. This is fun Sci-Fi Horror.

That scene is one of the best sustained action shots I can recall seeing.

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Cool someone who's seen it. What did you think of The Host?

It was okay. Definitely not a gory monster movie like you mentioned. Felt kind of like Cloverfield more than Godzilla.

The family didn't really leave any impact no me.

Did you say you wanted the English dub to be in a Korean accent?

I did say that, it was odd that the Korean family had no accent. Reminded me of a movie I watched last night, they were all French but sounded very British.

That's pretty common since localization generally takes place in the country the movie's being localized in.

I imagine it would be quite difficult to be in charge of dubbing over films, yet have to maintain a diverse enough roster of voice actors who can consistently pull off the accent of the country the film originates from.

The simplest alternative would be to rely on native English speakers from Korea who might sound unnatural to us.


Personally, I think overdubbing in live-action foreign films can be distracting. I've seen it work, but I've also seen Jackie Chan overdubbed and that's REALLY jarring if you happen to know what he actually sounds like.

Pan's Labyrinth was subtitled, and I still thought that was a fine movie.

Cube (1997)
Director: Vincenzo Natali
Cast: Nicole de Boer, Maurice Dean Wint, David Hewlett
Genre: Sci Fi, Thriler
Length 90 minutes

Seven complete strangers wake up trapped inside a cube like maze. Each of the seven people have vastly different back grounds and skills. As they try to escape the cube prison they find that some of the individual cubes have a death device in them. Which makes escaping very dangerous!


Cube is a very interesting movie. I liked the concept of the giant cube maze who's design is a mystery to the unfortunate people trapped there. Are they trapped by aliens? or the CIA? or what? It's a mystery that they and us try to figure out.

I liked the art direction, the way the sets looked, very cool. And if you think about it the cubes could have looked a million different ways, the design they went with was very simple, yet effective.

I also liked the makeup department or in this case the lack of makeup. Now think about that, how often do you see actresses in a movie with no make up at all? But in the Cube Nicole de Boer is ala natural. I found the lack of make up refreshing and it made these people look like real people under stress, they look gnarly.

I thought the script could have had more depth and detail and some of the plot developments where standard fare, but it still works and keeps you interested and the whole idea of people trapped in this cube maze works well.

I was happy to see Nicole deBoer in this, she played a very similar role two years earlier in an episode of Outer Limits 'Quality of Mercy'. She was also a cast member on Star Trek Deep Space Nine.

'Quality of Mercy' The Outer Limits (1995)

By a simple use of colored lights each cube cell had its on vibe going on. Some of the cubes contain a deadly surprise too. Don't blink in the first few seconds or you will miss someone meeting their demise.



Overall the Cube was an enjoyable film to watch.

A very good movie with my only real complaint being the graphic mutilation.

I don't like watching that stuff, especially when it feels like there's someone off-camera putting pages from the Saw sequels into my psychological thriller.

I gotta rewatch it again.

*EDIT: I don't recommend the sequel, Hypercube. It ruins the mystery.

Rules, I watched The Host recently, both the one in the Sci-Fi/Horror HoF and the other version that you recommended. They were both okay, but surprisingly, the Sci-Fi/Horror HoF movie was the better of the two movies.

Very true regarding Goldblum in Fly. So may actually do a rewatch at some point, who knows? I actually tolerated him in Independence Day

VERY glad to hear you enjoyed Robin and Marian. (Just realized I didn't add (REWATCH) and had to fix the post) Great movie, ALWAYS puts a smile on my face and that I actually caught it from the get-go by pure accident put even a BIGGER smile on my face
And yes, it would be VERY safe to bet Mark saw it lol In fact, double-checked and YEP, he watched it this weekend as well. He had it at 3.5 popcorns which is pretty good for his ratings.


I've seen The Host some years ago. Had seen it with subtitles. Loved the family as well.

And Cube is one of those I've been wanting to see and never seem to get to

It's worth it. It's 90 minutes, but it doesn't really feel like it's that long, at least to me.

I'm really not into gory mutilation stuff, yuk. But for me, the scenes in the Cube were more over the top so did not seem real and so then didn't bother me.

I can agree with that but I would have though you would have liked the other version better. So what about the Korean Sci Fi Horror version did you like?

It focused more on the people than the creature, it wasn't too gory, and it almost had the feel of the old sci-fi creature features. I don't consider it a great movie, but it was a lot better than I expected it to be. (TBH, I'm not really sure why I watched it because it didn't really sound like my kind of movie. )

My suspension of disbelief and gag factor do not often meet. It's really more a detail thing for me.

Yeah, I'm surprised you watched it (there should be a surprised smiley that I could use)....It did have a charm of the old monster movies. I'm guessing you watched the English dubbed version?

Yes. I probably would have turned it off early on if it was subtitled.

Hypercube is one of very very few movies in my book, which falls in the group of ratings.

It's one of the worst I have ever seen in my life. The first Cube is quite enjoyable though. Good reviews, Citizen!

I will avoid Hypercube! Thanks for the heads up

DAAAAAMN, I wouldn't have gone that far. Did you see Cube: Zero?

Out of more than 2,000 films rated on IMDb, only 25 of them gets that low a score from me. But yeah, nothing worked for me in that film.

And no I haven't, I never bothered.