The excellent Korean monster movie The Host (aka Gwoemul) comes out in theaters in the United States today, Friday March 9th, and we here at Cinema Strikes Back highly recommend that you see it. We were delighted to catch up with the director, Bong Joon-Ho, for a short interview at the Sitges Film Festival this past October near Barcelona, Spain. Because no translator was available at the time, Mr. Bong kindly offered to conduct the interview in English. What follows is a loose translation of the recorded discussion, which you’ll see begins in the middle of a conversation about the state of Korean cinema. Enjoy!

Cinema Strikes Back: We were very concerned over the past few years that in Korean cinema “gangster comedies” like “My Wife is a Gangster” had completely taken over the box office, and so we’re very excited to see that you’re moving things in a new direction…

Bong Joon-Ho: (Laughs) Those kinds of movies always existed in our industry. But also, at the same time, serious and creative films certainly also existed.

CSB: What filmmakers in Korea and elsewhere do you admire or look up to in your career as a filmmaker?

BONG: I love the, maybe you don’t know the old Korean director Kim Ki Young. He passed away 8 years ago, he was a master in 1960s and 1970s in Korea. In early December 2006, there will be a retrospective of Kim Ki Young. So, he’s my favorite director in Korea. I also love Imamura Shohei, the Japanese director, who passed away recently. I also love many, — all the mid-1970s American movies, even the box office hit movies of that time. They were very inventive and helpful, so I really love the 1970’s American movies.

CSB: There are similar themes in The Host to your earlier films Memories of Murder (Salinui chueok) and Barking Dogs Never Bite (Flandersui gae), and yet this also felt like a different film, I’m curious how this came about, and what attracted you to it….

BONG: In Memories of Murder, as compared to The Host, on the surface, the genres are quite different. One is a serial murder story and some kind of thriller. The Host is a monster movie, a creature movie. On the surface it is quite different. But underneath, I think many things are the same or similar: very weak and sometimes stupid main characters, who have a very big and impossible mission. In Memories of Murder they are desperately out to catch a murderer, but they fail. And also in The Host, they are very weak and are some kind of dysfunctional family desperately trying to fight this monster and to save her, their daughter. That kind of narrative structure, and also the main characters – the mood and style of main characters — are very much the same. Also, Memories of Murder is a genre movie, a thriller, but not so typical of a Hollywood thriller. It’s based on a very Korean feeling and background. It’s actually based on a real case that happened in the 1980s, so there is some kind of conflict between typical Hollywood genre convention and Korean reality in The Host, and also some kind of breakdown or collision.

(WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD) Even in Memories of Murder, the detectives fail to catch the murderer. Also, in this creature movie, they fail to save their little daughter. That kind of ending is maybe some kind of taboo in Hollywood movies, and there are also many different aspects in the movie, a different point of view compared to typical creature movies. For example, in a typical genre movie, we have to wait one to one and a half hours to see the monster, but in this movie, after only 13 minutes we can see the whole creature in broad daylight. I really enjoyed that aspect. It was quite risky, but I enjoyed it. Anyway, everytime I choose a genre, a typical genre, for my starting point, my beginning, but finally I break or I destroy it, so I always choose some genre just for destroying it. (Laughs) Maybe.

CSB: What led you to this project?

BONG: My very first idea for this movie was when I was in high school. My high school was near the Han River, which is the location of The Host. I always watched the river in that period from my window. So, when I was a kid, I was very curious about the Loch Ness monster in Scotland, that kind of monster. I was always curious about that. At the same time, when I saw the Han River, I always imagined what would happen if something like the Loch Ness monster suddenly appeared in the Han River. That means I was really attracted by the concept that the monster is some kind of sci-fi thing, a very fantastic thing, imaginative thing, appearing in an everyday place like the Han River, because the Han River is very much a part of the daily life of our people – like Central Park or the Hudson River in New York, that kind of thing. So that kind of concept really attracted me, a very sci-fi existence, combined with a very real place. For example, in Alien the monster appears in a very dark corner of the space ship, or in The Abyss, a monster from the deep ocean, every monster movie has that concept. But I really hoped to make a monster movie from a very real background, so that was my very first idea, and my concept. So, since high school, for many many years, that idea was in my mind.

So, after finishing Memories of Murder I decided that was the time to make that idea real. I spent nearly three years, very hard times, finding financing for the visual effects, a very very difficult thing, because our industry has no infrastructure or technical base to make these kind of visual effects, so I had very hard times for those three years. Anyway, so my very first idea was not influenced by monster movies, or some kind of tradition of the Korean monster genre, but just from my childhood memories, and that kind of background. But when I was writing a script, there was some inspiration from some typical movies like Signs by M. Night Shyamalan. It’s not a typical monster movie but an alien movie, with a relatively strong focus on the American family. Shyamalan never spent a lot of time to describe the invasion or the consequences of the invasion – he focused on the family, and that kind of structure inspired me. Also, in the original Jaws – the first half of Jaws was quite inspiring, because of the reaction and hysteria and dogma of that community, the beach town in chaos, that was also very inspiring for me. As for the structure of three characters fighting against the shark, I didn’t focus on that. But the first half was very inspiring. So when I was writing the script, I focused on those two movies and it was quite inspiring.

CSB: How has The Host been received in Korea?

BONG: There is not a strong tradition of this kind of monster movie in Korea, but Korean audiences already enjoyed many monster movies from abroad. So maybe they expected foreign actors, but at the same time, they’re not so familiar with this kind of movie. So maybe producers worry about that kind of thing. This kind of movie, a genre movie, maybe Korean audiences don’t like it, and also there is a prejudice in Korean audiences. For example, the monster movie is perceived as only for kids, very childish, not well-made films and only for small kids. That kind of prejudice is so strong in Korean audiences, so that kind of thing, made producers/financers worry about that. At the same time, in my point of view, that kind of risky aspect or prejudice is motivational, I really hope to break through those prejudices and it makes it more challenging.

CSB: Can you talk about the formation of the remarkable opening action sequence?

BONG: I had to do many things in that opening sequence. As I mentioned before, I have to surprisingly introduce the monster at that early time in broad daylight, and at the same time, in the sequence we have to introduce and inform our main characters and their moods and daily life, and sudden disaster at the same time, which is a very difficult thing. Because I really hate having a 20 or 30 minute sequence only for introducing the main characters and their daily life, and they love each other, etc.… very boring. I wanted to introduce our main characters and their mood and feeling and at the same time have the monster appear suddenly. So it was a difficult thing, but I enjoyed the situation. The most difficult thing is the relationship between the father and the little girl. Maybe the emotion between them is the most important emotional core of the movie’s narrative. All motivation, and all emotional energy, and all the energy of the narrative come from that core. But I didn’t have much time to describe and express that feeling, so it was quite challenging – only five or six minutes. And the audience can really feel the emotion and nuance between them, and at the same time the monster approached and disaster hit those ordinary people. It was very difficult and challenging.

During the attack of the monster, I was inspired by the “Running of the Bulls” festival in Spain. People running in the street… For people in Spain, there is some kind of enjoyment in this festival. But from our point of view it’s quite scary, and it’s sort of surreal, in broad daylight, and the beasts running…. So that kind of realistic feeling is inspired by that festival. And at the same time, combining with a surreal feeling. Maybe you don’t know, (I attended) a workshop on creature design. Richard Taylor, the head of WETA design, he showed us, he recommended one amazing photograph by… I can’t remember the name, it had strong sunshine in the street, in the parking lot. This inspired The Host – some things that look ordinary like a person with a shopping cart, but who is also fighting with the alien monster. The whole movie is very realistic, except for the monster, it’s very real and conveys an ordinary “daily life” feeling, a photographic feeling. Ideally I wanted that kind of feeling. Korean audiences may even feel more shock because many people have experienced that location, that place (Han River). They know that place very well, it’s a very familiar place, and here there’s a monster. So maybe they feel a weird feeling. But it’s very quick and fast, and the audience is not prepared for the monster when it attacks.

CSB: Are we going to see any deleted scenes on the DVD?

BONG: There were 12 or 13 deleted monster shots in the movie. You know the creature shots are very very expensive. Each shot is big budget. But because the rhythm of editing is more important than the creature shots, I cut out some of the creature shots. You’ll be able to see those creature shots (on the DVD), but I don’t like those extended versions, to put those shots in the movie, because with The Host or Memories of Murder, all my movies the theatrical cut is the director’s cut, so I don’t want to make an extended version. Only on the supplement disc, separately, you can see the many deleted shots about characters and monsters.

CSB: What are you working on next?

BONG: Two things, one is not a big thing, but a very small-budget movie, quite strong destructive drama about mother and son. The other thing, maybe my next, next movie is a sci-fi movie based on a comic book. Maybe you can find the title of the French comic book, it’s very hard to pronounce and to memorize. Mr Snowtrain, or the train through the snowflowers? Something like that.

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And with that our time ran out and the director was whisked away to another event. But we did look up the French comic book he was referencing: “La Transperceneige” it’s called. After having seen The Host, I’m sure you’ll be as anxious as we are to see what Mr. Bong has in store for us next. Jon Pais has more information on his next project over at Twitch (Update on Bong/Park Venture “Transperceneige”).

Related Links:
::: The Host Official Site
::: The Host IMDb Profile
::: Bong Joon-ho IMDb Profile
::: Jennifer Young Interviews Bong Joon-ho @ SF360
::: Memories of Murder IMDb Profile
::: Barking Dogs Never Bite IMDb Profile

© Charlie Prince
© Blake Ethridge