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Cast: Kang-ho Song (Gang Du), Hie-bong Byeon (Hie-Bong), Hae-il Park (Nam-Il), Du-na Bae (Nam-Joo), Ah-sung Ko (Hyun-Seo)
Directed by: Joon-ho Bong
Release date: September 2006

Frankly speaking monster movies are just not my cup of tea. But then I heard that the director of the noirish Korean feature ‘Memories of murder’ (one of my all time favorites) is directing some kind of a big-budget Godzilla movie with CGI special effects and all the trappings of a blockbuster. I was intrigued. It was sort of like Ang Lee taking up ‘The Hulk’. And then when it came out it got overwhelmingly positive press. Finally I got to see the movie yesterday. It didn’t turn me into a fan of the genre but it sure is as Un-Hollywood a creature feature as you can possibly make. And it works pretty well in most parts.

It has a creepy and disgusting monster, looking like it was born of an unholy union between Godzilla and the Alien. There is a prologue showing Americans dumping all kinds of chemicals into the Han River with absolute abandon and a trite mutation back-story to explain the origins of the creature.

But the movie intends to accomplish a lot more than just terrifying the shit out of the viewer or providing a few cheap thrills. Actually it’s not too scary. But the director subverts the genre to turn it into a biting commentary on family, society, the ineptitude of the government and the law-enforcement institutions and of course the great American wham-bang way of defusing problematic situations.

The Parks are a quintessential dysfunctional family. Old Hie-Bong runs a food cart on a beach in Seoul. His dim-witted eldest son Gang-Du spends his days dozing off at all kinds of inopportune moments. Gang-Du has a spirited 13-year old daughter, Hyun-Seo. The mother disappeared after giving birth to the girl. Hie-Bong’s other son Nam-Il is a jobless college graduate. He is the kind of guy who turns up drunk at his niece’s parent meet at 9 in the morning. But then he is the only one who turned up. Hie-Bong’s daughter Nam-Joo is the only success in the family. She is a national level archer…but her hesitant slowness has ensured that she never becomes the champion.

One bright, sunny morning, the monster emerges from the sea. After it has its fill of kills from the terrified crowds, it makes off with Hyun-Seo. Soon, the police and the army arrive. The area is cordoned off due to fears of a deadly virus outbreak. All the people who came into contact with the monster are taken off to the hospital to be disinfected and quarantined. At night Gang-Du receives a call from Hyun-Seo’s cell phone. She manages to communicate that she is trapped in some big sewer. But the authorities refuse to lend a sympathetic ear to the Park family’s claims that Hyun-Seo is alive. Then they decide to rescue her themselves.

From here on, the Parks are on the run from the police, hunting them down as a ‘contaminated’ family. They manage to enter into the restricted zone. As they roam about directionless in the dark underground sewers, their search gets more and more frustrating. The buried conflicts surface. But their love and concern for Hyun-Seo supersedes and it makes them stick together in this time of crisis.

What makes this movie different is the presence of fleshed out believable characters in place of the clichéd stereotypes found in similar American movies. And these are normal, reasonably intelligent people doing their best to deal with the dire situation at hand. Slapstick humor is used to good effect to satirize the failure of the incompetent government and its officials. Pot shots are taken at the American army and scientists.

There are a few contrived situations but for the most part, it avoids clichés, veering off along unexpected tangents. The element of suspense is maintained quite well. The end-result is a suitably satisfying genre movie, which transcends the restrictions of its protocols.