The Host

The many American studios vying for remake rights to Bong Joon-ho’s masterful blockbuster, The Host, seem to be missing a big part of the picture here. The film—while on the surface an old-fashioned King Kong-esque monster movie—is very unforgiving to U.S. foreign policies (and otherwise), to the point of bordering on being anti-American. Despite this, it’s managed to gross over a million here, in limited theatrical release. This is one I pray opens in my area, because (Canadian that I am) seeing it with a crowd of the flick’s targets would be quite an experience.

Right off the bat, Bong refuses to mince cinematic words by having a creepy, cartoonishly unreasonable American man (played by the dad in Junebug) instruct his nice, sensible Korean assistant to dump a whole lot of formaldehyde down the drain—knowing, and acknowledging, that it will ultimately end up in the Han River. It’s a moment that would be scoff-inducing and cheesy in its bold-faced unfairness, if it weren’t clearly done in satirical humor.

A few years later, those actions have produced a massive mutant sea (well, river) monster hell-bent on chowing down at the all-you-can-eat buffet local onlookers and unsuspecting tourists. The story narrows its focus (storywise) from here, onto a hapless ragtag family: an immature father, working for his own father at a small food stand, to support his preteen daughter, and said immature father’s brother (a college grad) and sister (a professional archer). They band together, in a touching display of bickering loyalty and constantly thwarted heroics, when their daughter/granddaughter/niece is snatched by the creature.

Unfortunately, authorities—by way of received orders from the U.S.A—are saying anyone who comes in contact with the mutant-fish needs to be quarantined in order to contain a deadly, highly-contagious (and highly-suspicious in its lack of details) virus. Before long, the entire family finds themselves forced to break out of a government hospital because no one believes that they’ve got a girl to save. The Kafkaesque absurdity on display as the surgical-mask sporting doctors shuffle around, administering anonymous medicine, and giving insincere reassurances, is nightmarishly gutsy—and executed awfully well.

The sometimes metaphorical, sometimes literal political commentary here is viciously funny, and more than a little disturbing. It’s this—even aside from the exhilarating, authentically thrilling popcorn fun at hand—that makes The Host deserving of the praise its been honored with, and then some. It’s the sort of film that gets me, at the risk of sounding extremely dorky and Ebertish, excited about movies. And relieved to be Canadian.

Kamikaze Girls

Between the frenetic quick-cuts, oversaturated, hyper-stylized visual language, and exaggerated, zany characters in Kamikaze Girls lies a thoughtful, affecting female friendship piece. The film also serves as solid evidence that director Tetsuya Nakashima can actually handle women much better than sophomore effort Memories of Matsuko would suggest.

Singer/actress Kyoko Fukada (the object-of-obsession pop star in Kitano’s Dolls) plays a disaffected teen living in rural Japan, and conveying what little personality and self-worth she has through her favorite style of dress: Lolita. For those unfamiliar, Lolita (usually paired with a Gothic in front) fashion is, more or less, frilly Victorian dresses and bonnets, most famously found in internationally known shops like Baby, the Stars Shine Bright (featured in the movie), and Metamorphose. Fukada’s Momoko asserts that her fascination with the decadent lifestyle of the similarly-outfitted Rococo period is the reason she wears the get-ups. At 17, she’s the right age to pull it off without being creepy or pity-inspiring, but is still an outcast in her farming village surroundings.

Eventually Momoko burns through her resources and finds herself too broke to feed her “happiness” (i.e. Lolita clothes). She remedies this by selling her dad’s old Versace bootlegs to a local, rough-around-the-edges girl biker Ichiko (Anna Tsuchiya). So grateful for the discounted price Momoko charges her for the junk, Ichiko starts to hang around. Little by little—through soul-baring confessions, favors, scooter trips, and head butts—Ichiko wears down Momoko’s indifferent exterior and the two become, yes, unlikely friends. This development is handled subtly, and with minimal cheese. The two leading ladies make it all very believable, and very adorable, right up to the mildly badass ending showdown.

Coincidentally, I’d recently revisited two of my favorite extreme/thriller films (Japan’s 2LDK, and Hong Kong’s Koma), which also happen to deal with the unreasonable love/hate nature of many (if not most) female relationships. While in the former two, the girls express their ‘hate’ phases much more violently, Momoko and Ichiko’s bond still fits perfectly next to them as an excellent depiction of the xx/xx dynamic. And they didn’t even have to fight over some man to get there.

Hana Yori mo Naho

One of the marks of a great director is, of course, the ability to try—and effortlessly succeed at—doing something wholly unexpected of them. With the lighthearted samurai satire Hana Yori mo Naho, usually cinematically-somber Hirokazu Kore’eda (After Life, Maborosi) accomplishes the former. True, his films have never been depressing (they’re the opposite, if anything), or heavy-handedly serious; but I doubt anyone, least of all me, saw this coming. From slapstick to shit jokes, to gentle romantic comedy, Hana’s closer to Kitano’s Zatoichi than anything Kore’eda himself has done.

Our hero Soza (played nicely by Okada Junichi) is, to those around him, anything but: he’s residing in a tiny village, half-heartedly searching for his father’s killer (in order to avenge him via doing away with the perp), but mostly just wooing a local widow (Rie Miyazawa, of the loosely comparable Twilight Samurai) with a cute 8 year old son. Poking fun at samurai culture (more specifically, the 47 Ronin legends and such), and the senseless violence found in its “honor system,” the film is free of glamorized—or otherwise, for that matter—fight sequences. Kore’eda’s protagonist has as little interest in glorified revenge as the director himself. He even, along with fellow villagers, participates in a play parodying the rogue warriors.

It all sounds good on paper. Hana’s concept and values are certainly worthy of admiration. Kore’eda, however, doesn’t quite find his footing here: in spots where the comedy shines, the drama and realism are being overlooked—and vice versa. The film’s tone rarely resembles anything that could be called “even.” It also happens to be overlong (yes, it’s a period piece, but a lighthearted farce as well, and this length is unnecessary), lacking in the satisfying-conclusion department, and—perhaps an unfair criticism—it’s nowhere near as good as any top form Kore’eda film.

All of that aside, Hana is just the sort of film you could never hate. Unless you’re completely soulless, or something. If nothing else, it’s a charming diversion, and a captivatingly flawed experiment from an already established master. Underwhelming as it may be, it somehow makes me respect him even more.