(2006; English dubbing from Korean) The monster movie to end all monster movies. Viewers who don't walk out on this film or shut off the DVD soon after the huge, horrible creature rises from the Han River will either complain of it's being among the worst monster movies they've ever seen or realize that nothing this bad gets produced unintentionally. This is to Asian horror flicks what Dark Star was to sci-fi.

The corny and hysterical dialogue, dubbed into English (and Spanish), sounds improvised with the subtitles not matching the audio. On February 9, 2000, at a mortuary of the 8th US Army in Yongsan Camp, South Korea, an American military (cross-eyed) doctor orders his Korean assistant to pour hundreds of bottles of formaldehyde down the drain, which will pass into the Han River, because the bottles have become dusty. In June 2002, a pair of fisherman catch a mutant fish in the Han River. In October 2006, a man leaps off a bridge into the Han River with these words of farewell: "I'll see you in hell!"

The Park family is comprised of a grandfather, who owns a grocery stand, his two sons - Nam-il and Gang-du - and daughter, Nam-joo (who wins an Olympic bronze medal as an archer). My apologies for not naming the actors. The youngest of the siblings (who regard their brother as a pathetic loser), Gang-du, is a lazy, irresponsible, single parent of a seventh-grade daughter, Hyun-seo (whom he offers a beer when she comes home from school).

When the monster emerges from the river, charging the onlookers on the riverbank, Gang-du loses Hyun-seo in the panic; after he gets splattered with the creature's blood while he and another man try to fight the beast, he sees his daughter snatched by the monster's tail and taken into the water.

At a mass funeral for victims, authorities take Gang-du into custody along with his family for quarantine. "A living biological weapon," the monster has been determined to be the "host of a deadly new virus." Gang-du receives a call on his cell phone from Hyun-seo, who says she's trapped in a giant sewer. Refusing to help trace the call, a skeptical police officer refuses to believe the story.

Inside the sewer two homeless boys run into the monster; the little child Se-joo survives, becoming Hyun-seo's companion. Desperate to find his daughter, Gang-du, with his father and siblings, escapes from the quarantine facility; the infected family attempts to take on the horrible host with tragic results.

Meanwhile, Korean protesters gather in opposition to the US Army's plan to release a yellow-agent gas, intended to destroy the virus.

Camera shots of ominous cues fail to materialize, non-sequitur juxtapositions misdirect, misplaced scenes confuse - everything communicates misinformation. With its agile tail, this terrible mutant thing is director Bong Joon-Ho's vehicle for pulling our leg.

Click here for links to places to buy or rent this movie in video and/or DVD format, or to buy the soundtrack, posters, books, even used videos, games, electronics and lots of other stuff. I suggest you shop at least two of these places before buying anything. Prices seem to vary continuously. For more information on this film, click on this link to The Internet Movie Database. Type in the name of the movie in the search box and press enter. You will be able to find background information on the film, the actors, and links to much more information.

Copyright © 2008 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

Patrick Ivers can be reached via e-mail at .