The Host (2006 film)

The Host is a 2006 monster film directed and co-written by Bong Joon Ho. It stars Song Kang-ho as food stand vendor Park Gang-du whose daughter Hyun-seo (Go Ah-sung) is kidnapped by a creature dwelling around the Han River in Seoul. Byun Hee-bong, Park Hae-il, and Bae Doona appear in supporting roles as Gang-du's father, brother, and sister, respectively, who help Gang-du escape quarantine against an alleged virus derived from the monster and search for his daughter. Considered a co-production between South Korea and Japan, the film was produced by independent studio Chungeorahm Film and presented by its South Korean distributor Showbox and the Japanese investor Happinet.
Bong had dreamed of making a monster movie since his adolescence, inspired by the Godzilla and Ultraman franchises. The catalyst for The Host was the McFarland incident that occurred in February 2000, when an American civilian working on a military base in South Korea ordered the disposal of formaldehyde down a drain leading to the Han River. Bong devised the story of a monster resulting from this incident and proposed it two years later. In 2003, he started scripting The Host with Ha Joon-won; Baek Chul-hyun joined the pair to revise the script in December 2004. Principal photography lasted from June 2005 to January 2006, mostly taking place in Seoul along the Han River. New Zealand-based special effects company Wētā Workshop modeled the creature and the American studio The Orphanage handled the visual effects. Of the film's $11 million budget, $4.5 million was spent on the over 100 visual effect shots.
An unfinished cut of The Host debuted at the 59th Cannes Film Festival on May 21, 2006, as part of the Directors' Fortnight. The finished film was released in South Korea on July 27, Japan on September 2, and in the United States on March 9, 2007. It became the highest-grossing South Korean film of all time, earning $89–97 million worldwide. Many critics praised The Host as among the best films of 2006 or 2007. The film received several accolades, including the inaugural Asian Film Award for Best Film. A sequel and an American remake were later announced, but neither materialized.
In recent years, The Host has been called one of the best monster and horror films of the 21st century thus far, and it has been listed among the greatest science fiction films ever made. It is regarded as a landmark of Korean cinema and remains among South Korea's highest-grossing films. Some retrospective reviews felt that The Host has grown in relevance as COVID-19 restrictions reflected elements of the film.
In 2000, an American pathologist orders his Korean assistant to dump hundreds of bottles containing formaldehyde down a drain which leads to the Han River. Over the next few years, several sightings of a strange amphibious creature in the waterway around Seoul occur.
In 2006, Park Gang-du, a slow-witted man, runs a small snack bar in Hangang Park with his father, Hee-bong. Gang-du's other family members include his daughter, Hyun-seo; his sister Nam-joo, a famed archer; and his brother, Nam-il, an unemployed college graduate.
A large creature emerges from the Han River and begins attacking and killing many people. After trying to help an American combat the monster, Gang-du grabs his daughter and joins the fleeing crowd, but inadvertently lets go of her hand. The monster snatches Hyun-seo and dives back into the river. After a mass funeral for the victims, those in attendance are forced to be quarantined, including the Park family. Korean government representatives and the United States Forces Korea (USFK) proclaim that the creature hosts an unknown deadly virus.
Gang-du receives a phone call from Hyun-seo. She says that she is trapped in the sewers with the creature, but then her phone runs out of battery. Gang-du and his family escape quarantine at the hospital and purchase supplies from gangsters to search for Hyun-seo. Two homeless boys, Se-jin and Se-joo, are attacked and swallowed by the creature. It returns to its sleeping area in the sewer and regurgitates them, but only Se-joo is alive. Hyun-seo helps Se-joo hide inside a drain pipe where the creature cannot reach them.
The Park family encounters the monster and shoot at it until they run out of ammunition. Seemingly unharmed by the bullets, the creature kills Hee-bong and runs off. After the army captures Gang-du, Nam-il and Nam-joo split up. Nam-il meets an old friend, nicknamed "Fat Guevara", for assistance at an office and learns the government has placed a bounty on his family. Unbeknownst to Nam-il, Fat Guevara has contacted officials to claim the bounty, but Nam-il escapes after obtaining Hyun-seo's location, near the Wonhyo Bridge. Elsewhere, Gang-du overhears an American doctor saying the virus is a hoax invented to distract the public from the creature's origin. They decide to lobotomize Gang-du to silence him.
When the creature is sleeping, Hyun-seo tries to escape from its lair using a rope she has made from old clothes but the monster wakes up and swallows Hyun-seo and Se-joo. Meanwhile, Gang-du succeeds in escaping from where he is being held by taking a nurse hostage. The government and USFK announce a plan to release a toxic chemical called "Agent Yellow" around the river to kill the monster. Gang-du finds the creature and sees Hyun-seo's arm dangling from its mouth. He chases it to where the chemical will be released, meeting Nam-joo along the way. It attacks the large crowd which has assembled to protest the chemical dump. Agent Yellow is released, stunning the beast. Gang-du pulls Hyun-seo out of its mouth, discovering that she has died while clutching Se-joo, who is unconscious but alive. Enraged by her death, Gang-du attacks the creature, aided by Nam-il, Nam-joo, and a homeless man. They set it ablaze and Gang-du impales it with a pole, finally killing it. As they mourn for Hyun-seo, Gang-du revives Se-joo.
Sometime later, Gang-du has inherited his father's snack bar and adopted Se-joo. While watching the river, he hears a noise and investigates but finds nothing. He and Se-joo share a meal, ignoring a news broadcast stating that the incident's aftermath was due to misinformation.
Scott Wilson, David Joseph Anselmo, Paul Lazar, and Clinton Morgan play Americans stationed in South Korea (Douglas, the pathologist; Sergeant Donald White; a doctor who speaks with Gang-du; and the Agent Yellow operator, respectively). Filmmaker Yim Pil-sung, a friend of writer-director Bong Joon Ho, portrays Nam-il's senior from university 'Fat Guevara'. Other cast members include Lee Jae-eung [ko] as Se-jin; Yoon Je-moon as a homeless man; Kim Roi-ha as 'Yellow 1' (at the funeral); Go Soo-hee as the nurse who Gang-du takes hostage; and Brian Lee as Mr. Kim (the pathologist's assistant). The sounds of the Han River monster were provided by Oh Dal-su.
The Host was a longtime passion project that Bong had dreamed of since high school. During his youth, he was a fan of the kaiju genre, frequently viewing entries in the Godzilla and Ultraman franchises on the American Forces Korea Network (AFKN). In a 2006 interview, he added that he was "unhappy about the lack of a monster movie tradition in [South Korea]". Having also developed a fascination with mythical creatures, he imagined a Nessie-like monster rising from the Han River and disrupting Seoul residents' daily routines. Moreover, Bong claimed that he once saw a creature crawling up and falling off the Jamsil Bridge during his high school years in 1987. He said, "that day I promised myself to make a film about this if I became a director, at all costs".
In 2000, Bong felt further encouraged to make his own monster movie in response to the widely reported McFarland incident that occurred in February of that year, around the same time as his directorial debut, Barking Dogs Never Bite, was released. The scandal involved an American civilian named Albert McFarland ordering his employees at a military base mortuary to dump around 470 bottles containing formaldehyde into a drain that fed into the Han River. In addition to environmental concerns, this incident caused some antagonism toward the United States. The film's opening scene was directly based upon this event, with Scott Wilson playing a McFarland-esque character. Bong compared how the film was made as a response to a recent geopolitical event with how Godzilla (1954)'s purpose was to provide a warning against nuclear weapons. Furthermore, Guillermo del Toro's Mimic (1997) and M. Night Shyamalan's Signs (2002) were significant influences on the film, and Bong indicated that Jaws (1975), Alien (1979), and The Thing (1982) may have also inspired him while making it.
Bong proposed the film in 2002, and began developing it while making his second feature film Memories of Murder (released in 2003). Many of Bong's friends and colleagues initially discouraged him from making a monster movie because they perceived that people generally considered the genre to be "childish and juvenile". However after Memories of Murder became a commercial success, Bong won the trust of financiers and the movie's production was authorized. In 2003, Bong directed the short film Sink and Rise, which featured Byun playing a food stand vendor near the Han River; it is now considered to be a prequel to The Host. Bong and Ha Joon-won started scripting The Host that same year; Baek Chul-hyun joined the pair for revision in December 2004. Ha recalled that they initially consulted materials at the National Library of Korea during scripting:
During the writing process, the crew spent two years scouting locations around the Han River. At the 2004 Busan International Film Festival, Bong revealed that the script was still being revised, that the film's English title would be The Host, and presented publicity stills of the monster. The Host became a co-production between South Korea and Japan; Chungeorahm Film served as the production studio and the film's South Korean distributor Showbox is credited as a presenter alongside Happinet, a Japanese company that had invested $4.8 million into the production. The film ultimately had a budget of ₩11 billion (roughly $11 million), making it very costly by local industry standards. According to Variety, it became one of the most expensive independent films ever produced in South Korea.
Jang Hee-cheol designed the film's creature in collaboration with Bong. Development of the creature began in December 2003; more than 2,000 drawings were reportedly submitted until the final design was decided upon. The monster was designed with some specific characteristics in mind. According to the director, the inspiration came from a local article about a deformed fish with an S-shaped spine caught in the Han River. This led to the design to look like an actual mutated fish-like creature, rather than having a more fantastical design. In the opening scenes, two fishermen presumably encounter the creature whilst it is still small enough to fit in one of their cups; suggestive of its humble, more realistic origins. The monster also has frontal limbs similar to amphibians' legs. This element of its design seems to have been more a choice of functionality on the designers' part as the monster needed to be able to run and perform certain acrobatic movements during the film.
In June 2005, it was confirmed that Song, Byun, Park Hae-il, and Bae would star in the film, all of whom except Bae had worked with Bong on Memories of Murder. Song received ₩500 million for the role of Gang-du, and he partly dyed his hair yellow in preparation to play the character. According to Bong, newcomer Go Ah-sung was cast in the film "in a very big audition process". Yim, as Fat Guevara, had no experience in acting and was faced with an awkward set up by Bong for his role: "[Bong] once asked me if I 'took an interest in acting'. Sometime later, I went to his office, and an unexpected audition had been arranged, and I had to suddenly perform in front of actor Park Hae-il." Bong and an American casting director chose Hollywood veterans Wilson and Lazar to portray the Americans stationed in South Korea. The two actors quickly agreed to appear in the film to the crew's surprise. Bong's preference for Lazar was based on his performance in The Silence of the Lambs (1991).
Bong decided to hire someone to dub over the Han River monster after he was dissatisfied by the attempts at creating realistic sounding roars. During a night out drinking with Bong and Song, Oh Dal-su volunteered to provide the sounds for the creature.
Principal photography began on June 29, 2005 and wrapped on January 8, 2006. The Korean Film Council estimates that 80% of the film was filmed on location along the Han River in Seoul at locations such as Yeouido Park, Seogang Bridge, Dongjak Bridge, Hangang Bridge, Jamsil Bridge, and Wonhyo Bridge. Some of the shooting also took place in the real sewers near the river. Thus, the stars and crew were inoculated against tetanus and had to deal with the effects of changes in weather and ambient temperature. Crew member Song Yong-woon said he had "no good memories of the sewer experience", recalling, in particular, an incident where mosquito larvae swarmed the ground in response to a flashlight.
American visual effects supervisor Kevin Rafferty worked closely with Bong during filming. He noticed the Korean cast and crew seemed more passionate than those in Hollywood and was surprised by how they were editing the film at the same time as filming. Wilson traveled to South Korea in August 2005, and Lazar followed shortly after, completing his scenes in September 2005. Morgan and Anselmo experienced visa issues, breaching Article 20 of South Korea's Immigration Control Act by working on a project in the country without government authorization and were deported under coercion. The only work permit Morgan had received was to teach English at the University of Suwon, while Anselmo had a 90-day short-term work permit.
The Host was Bong's first film to feature visual effects, and he had to work around the budget-imposed restrictions, especially when it came to the special effects. Bong initially approached the New Zealand-based company Wētā FX and American studio Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) to handle the film's visual effects, but both requested prices that were out of reach. ILM wanted ₩100 million per shot, which would have brought the 120 visual effect shots of the monster alone to a cost of ₩12 billion. The computer-generated imagery (CGI) for the film was ultimately done by the American visual effects studio The Orphanage, which also did some of the visual effects for The Day After Tomorrow (2004). Bong stated that, of the film's US$11 million budget, $4.5 million was spent on the over 100 visual effect shots.
A maquette of the creature was modeled by the New Zealand-based special effects company Wētā Workshop while John Cox's Creature Workshop in Queensland made animatronics of it. The digital model was initially created using Silo and arranged in Maya. Bong estimates the film used 110 shots of the digital model, while around twelve feature the life-sized head and mouth animatronics. Animator Tim Dobbert created a match moving arrangement combining rotoscoped elements with alpha compositing to enhance the insertion of the monster into the live-action environment, accelerating the animation process.
The animators looked at real-life creatures and films when rendering the monster. According to Rafferty, the team drew inspiration from the creatures in several Hollywood films, including Predator (1987), Jurassic Park (1993), Dragonheart (1996), and Blade II (2002). They also burnt a bass and trout at the studio to use as reference for the scene where the monster goes up in flames. Corey Rosen, who oversaw the creation and animation of the creature's model, noted that Johnny Eck's motions in Freaks (1932) were used as references for the creature's movement since Eck had a torsoless body and carried his weight on his arms like the creature.
Due to the success of Bong's previous film, Memories of Murder, The Host was highly anticipated. The film premiered in an incomplete state at the Cannes Film Festival on May 21, 2006, as part of the Directors' Fortnight. Photographer Kim Jung-man made the film's posters. It was later released on a record number of screens in South Korea on July 27, 2006, and made the South Korean record books for its box office performance during its opening weekend. The 2.63 million admissions and US$17.2 million box office revenue easily beat the previous records set by Typhoon (2005). The film reached six million viewers on August 6, 2006. By the end of its nine-week run in South Korea, the film had grossed more than $90 million and the number of viewers came in at 13,019,740.
According to the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS), The Host became Bong's first film to receive an international distribution. In Japan, it was highly anticipated but was a box office bomb on its September 2, 2006 release, placing seventh on opening weekend. South Korean analyst Kim Bong-seok noted: "The recent Godzilla film was a box office failure, and the tastes of young audiences are changing. In addition, the audience base of Korean movies that have gained popularity due to the Korean Wave so far is different from the audience base of monster movies, which seems to have had a negative effect." It received a wide release in France on November 22, 2006, and in the United States on March 9, 2007, by Magnolia Pictures.
Sources state that The Host set a new record for the highest-grossing South Korean film, but box office figures are inconsistent. The Hollywood Reporter reported that it grossed around $90 million worldwide. According to the box-office tracking websites Box Office Mojo and the Numbers, The Host earned $2.2 million in the United States and Canada and $87.2 million to $90.4 million in other territories, giving the film a worldwide total of $89.4 million to $92.6 million. According to Chungeorahm Film's March 2007 theatrical profit estimate, the film had earned $97 million.
The Host garnered widespread critical praise. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 93% of 155 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.7/10. The website's consensus reads: "As populace pleasing as it is intellectually satisfying, The Host combines scares, laughs, and satire into a riveting, monster movie." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 85 out of 100, based on 35 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Moreover, several publications listed it among the top films of 2006 or 2007. In IndieWire's 2007 critics poll, it placed 17th on their Best Film list based on 19 mentions; Bong also tied for 16th on the Best Director list.
South Korean journalists believed the film demonstrated Bong's expertise, and generally lauded the blend of comedy and horror. Meanwhile, the American press mostly praised the film's recreational appeal, originality, and political satire. Manohla Dargis considered it the greatest film shown at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. She wrote in The New York Times: "The Host is a loopy, feverishly imaginative genre hybrid about the demons that haunt us from without and within." The Tokyo Shimbun spoke positively of how the film has a "different taste" from American horror movies. The Asahi Shimbun lauded the "eventful" script, "light tone", special effects, themes, suspense, and humor. Dana Stevens described it as a "flawless monster movie". Some reviewers were, however, more critical; Kim Soyoung dismissed the latter half of the film as "nihilistic" while Lee Hyun-kyung felt the "allegory was one-dimensional and the banter was often over the top".
Moon Seok of the South Korean film magazine Cine21 cited the performances of Song, Byun, Park, Bae, and Go as the film's central strength because they provided emotional intensity to the film. According to the Korean Film Council, Bong's collaboration with Song and Bae was "praised for its entertainment value in combination with social and political commentary". Adrian Martin highlighted Bae's performance, believing that "[Bong's] collaboration with Bae adds a dimension that no American blockbuster can even approach". Wilson's performance was singled out by Jim Emerson of RogerEbert.com, noting that he was "clearly having fun".
Western reviewers often compared The Host to Godzilla and many other monster movies from the 20th century. Empire described it "as if Ken Loach remade Godzilla". Martin said the experience of watching the film was akin to seeing Jaws upon its initial 1975 release, but described Bong as a "much more interesting and intricate director than Spielberg will ever be". Adam Nayman pointed out similarities to Wendigo (2001), with characters feeding the monster and unknowingly provoking it to eat them, and, like most reviews (according to him), highlighted how Bong acquaints the audience with the monster. The scene when it first comes ashore was "awe-inspiring, exotic, [and] even a touch humorous" for Peter Bradshaw, but he felt it wasn't as daunting in comparison to Ridley Scott's Alien (1979). Moon Seok and Heo Moon-young also compared the film to Bong's previous work on Memories of Murder, remarking that both films incorporate genre-blending and political critique, but noted that The Host has a greater emphasis on these.
The Host was nominated in various categories for Asian film awards, particularly for Bong's direction, Kim Hyung-koo's cinematography, and Song's performance. At the 1st Asian Film Awards held in March 2007, the film dominated the competition and won four out of its five nominations. It won the inaugural award in the Best Film, Best Actor (Song), Best Cinematographer (Kim Hyung-koo), and Best Visual Effects (The Orphanage) categories. In South Korea, The Host won six Blue Dragon Film Awards; five Korean Film Awards; three Director's Cut Awards; and two Grand Bell Awards. Go was nominated for the Baeksang Arts Award for Best New Actress as well as the Grand Bell Award and Korean Film Award for Best Supporting Actress. She also won the Blue Dragon Film Award for Best New Actress and Director's Cut Award for Best Actress (the latter jointly with Bae).
The film also received awards from various Western awards, critics' organizations, and film festivals. Among its nominations were Best International Film and Best Young Actor/Actress (Go) at the 33rd Saturn Awards, and the Belgian Film Critics Association's 2008 Grand Prix. Bong was awarded Best Director in Competition at Fantasporto and the film won the Golden Raven at the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival. After being screened at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival along with Lee Joon-ik's The King and the Clown (2005) and Kim Ki-duk's Time (2006), The Host joined the other two films as a contender for South Korea's submission for Best International Feature Film at the 79th Academy Awards, but lost out to The King and the Clown.
Some Japanese and South Korean viewers thought that The Host strongly resembled the 2002 anime thriller film WXIII: Patlabor the Movie 3. The Yukan Fuji [ja] reported that these comparisons resulted in a "plagiarism suspicion uproar". Similarities noted by Internet users included the anti-Americanism theme, sewer setting, climax, and monster design. However, many cinephiles also questioned these claims. Happinet issued a statement maintaining that "if there was plagiarism, we would not have invested in or helped to distribute it in the first place". A representative of Chungeorahm Film said: "I am confident that if Japanese viewers directly watch the anime that has been suggested as the source material, they will never instantly conclude that it is similar to The Host. We also think that the plagiarism allegations are just a random incident." According to The Host's Japanese distributor Kadokawa Herald Pictures, Bong had never heard of the Patlabor franchise, which WXIII is an installment of.
Shortly after the film's release, producer Choi Yong-bae hired his friend Kang Full to write The Host 2 (Korean: 괴물2; RR: Goemul Dul; lit. Monster 2). The sequel's development was publicized in June 2007, with a scheduled release date of 2009. Sources presumed that another filmmaker would direct the sequel since Bong openly refused to. Chungeorahm Film announced in January 2008 that Kang had completed the first draft of the screenplay, and that it would now be a prequel to The Host featuring several monsters. The following month, Variety reported that principal photography on the film was set to begin later that year on a budget of around $12 million. In June, plans were announced for a localization of The Host 2 for Chinese audiences, featuring a predominantly Chinese cast. Kang later abandoned the project, leading to its first cancellation.
The film re-entered development in 2009 again as a sequel. A new group of writers was brought onto the project and a company in Singapore agreed to invest $5 million into it. In November 2009, Twitch Film revealed that the screenplay was being reworked with a simultaneous video game adaptation, planned as a multi-platform first-person shooter. According to The Hollywood Reporter in October 2010, a demo reel would debut at the Tokyo International Film Festival in 2010 and the film had a projected release date of summer 2012. Their report also stated that it was now set to become a 3D film with a $17.6 million budget. The script was "currently under last-minute revision". By that time, Park Myung-cheon had agreed to direct the film. Test footage starring Kwak Do-won was released in 2012. This reel and reporting on the director encouraged the public to believe that filming had begun. Having initially mistaken the footage for a clip from the sequel, IndieWire later clarified that it was a promotional test reel; the site also mentioned that Yim Pil-sung was working on the screenplay.
In November 2014, OBS reported that casting for The Host 2 had recently commenced. Principal photography was expected to begin in 2015 under Park's direction as a Chinese-Korean co-production, with an intended 2016 release date. In 2019, Cine21 declared that, despite rumors from 2016 indicating that principal photography had occurred, The Host 2 had been canceled.
The success of The Host led to many Hollywood studios' interest in remaking it. Screen International reported in November 2006 that Cineclick Asia had sold the remake rights to Universal Studios and turned down the offers from Plan B Entertainment, 20th Century Fox, and Michael De Luca. Universal executives subsequently assigned Roy Lee and Doug Davidson of Vertigo Entertainment to co-produce the film. In November 2008, it was announced that the remake would be produced by Gore Verbinski, written by Mark Poirier, and directed by first-time filmmaker Fredrik Bond. The film was set to be released in 2011.
The film was released on DVD in the United States on July 24, 2007, in both single-disc and a two-disc collector's edition in DVD, HD-DVD and Blu-ray Disc formats. A 3D remaster of the film, titled The Host 3D, premiered at the 2011 Busan International Film Festival, as a prelude for The Host 2, which was still in development at the time. The Host 3D was produced on a budget of ₩1.5 billion, and handled by Studio Raon. According to the company's CEO Kim Moon-ki they wanted to "stay faithful to director Bong's intentions and not let the effects distract the viewer" when creating it. Bong, who is reportedly wary of technological innovations such as 3D films, was shown the 3D remaster early and said he was impressed by it.
In the film, the United States Forces Korea is portrayed as uncaring about the effects their activities have on the locals. Bong said the alleged virus discovered by the U.S. base was intended to be "[his] satirical take on the absence of WMD in Iraq". The chemical agent used by the American military to combat the monster, named "Agent Yellow" in a thinly-veiled reference to Agent Orange, was also used to satirical effect. South Korean viewers debated whether the film was anti-American following its release. Bong responded to the anti-American assertions on Korean Broadcasting System (KBS)'s radio service, saying: "It's a stretch to simplify The Host as an anti-American film, but there is certainly a metaphor and political commentary about the U.S." He later said he did not intend to represent the anti-American sentiment in Korea and expressed discomfort with the Los Angeles Times claiming in a report that this was his intent. According to ScreenAnarchy, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il lauded The Host for its reputed anti-Americanism and referred to the United States Forces Korea as the actual "monster of the Han River". North Korea issued a statement praising the film for incorporating such themes: "The Host reflected South Korea's reality and people's psychology there. In the South, environmental crimes by the U.S. troops are very serious and is a life or death matter directly related to people". During a hearing on September 27, 2006 regarding potential threats to the U.S.-South Korea alliance, the United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs mentioned The Host and its popularity in South Korea. The committee noted that South Korean politician Jung Chung-rae wrote an article after watching the film, titled "We Must Look at the United States, the Real 'Monster' of This Land." Contrarily, The Washington Post and Song Kwang-ho both agreed that the film was "by no means anti-American".
The Host is also critical of the South Korean government, who are portrayed as bureaucratic, inept, and essentially uncaring in the film. Korean youth protesters are also satirized in the film, shown as partially heroic and partially self-righteous and oblivious. According to Bong, the Park Nam-il character is a deliberate anachronism, a reference to South Korea's troubled political history which involved violent protest. The administrations of Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye later blacklisted Bong for making Memories of Murder, The Host, and Snowpiercer (2013), alleging "[The Host] highlights anti-Americanism and governmental incompetence, pushing the society leftward".
Bong has said that the film's English title, The Host, can be analyzed as describing several of its themes. He continued: "A host is the opposite of the word of parasite. But if you were to expand on that here in the film, the central focal point of the film is the protagonists family. This loser family. Whatever is tormenting this family, that is making life hard for them or oppressing them, you could say that whoever, whatever is not helping them on the whole ... its a host of all those things. It could be the creature itself, it could be the system that doesn't help this family, Korean society, America, a wide spectrum of meaning for the host."
The film lacks a mother figure, which professor Baek Moon-im believes enhances its comedic moments depicting Gang-du as a struggling single father. He added that, if a mother character had been introduced, the film's tone would have likely completely changed to be in the vein of Bong's 2009 film Mother. Scholar James Lloyd Turner interpreted the Han River monster as feminine, writing that "Its small size, clumsiness, and physical otherness are all inversions of monster movie conventions and function to code The Host's monster as feminine." The creature is not given a name in its film, unlike masculine cinematic monsters like King Kong and Godzilla, which Turner believed was avoided because "a family name is passed on from a father to his offspring and so names are associated with masculinity". He also suggested that the United States is represented as the monster's father and South Korea as its mother.
The Host remains one of South Korea's highest-grossing films ever, and is considered a landmark of Korean cinema. It was Bong's first film to gain major worldwide attention, helping expand his cult following. The Host has also inspired numerous films, and launched a minor resurgence in the monster genre in South Korea, with the subsequent movies including D-War (2007), Chaw (2009), and Sector 7 (2011). Bong later featured monsters in his films Okja (2017) and Mickey 17 (2025), which he also co-designed with Jang. According to Cine21, J. J. Abrams once informed Bong that Cloverfield (2008) and Super 8 (2011) reference the film. Kong: Skull Island (2017) director Jordan Vogt-Roberts cited The Host, especially its early introduction of the monster, as an inspiration. After Bong won several awards for Parasite (2019) at the 92nd Academy Awards, filmmakers Scott Beck and Bryan Woods revealed on Twitter that "The Host has been a huge influence on many of [their] scripts, including A Quiet Place." In March 2025, Godzilla Minus One director Takashi Yamazaki told Bong that The Host was an inspiration.
According to Korea.net in May 2014, the film and its monster left a lasting cultural impression on South Koreans, with many Seoul residents continuing to associate rainy days near the Han River with scenes depicted in the film. Later that year, a 10-meter-long sculpture of the film's monster was placed in Hangang Park as a tourist attraction. After much backlash from locals who considered the sculpture a "waste of money", it was removed in 2024.
Since its release, several publications have named The Host as one of the greatest science fiction films ever made, and among the best monster and horror films of the 21st century thus far. IndieWire also called it the century's defining monster film. The film placed number 81 on Empire's list of "The 100 Best Films of World Cinema"; appeared on Entertainment Weekly's lists of the 25 best monster movies and Korean horror films of all time, and on the Rotten Tomatoes' list of the greatest horror movies. It is also listed in the film reference book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die.
In 2009, filmmaker Quentin Tarantino listed The Host among his Top 20 Favorite Films released since his directorial debut in 1992. Upon meeting Bong in 2013, Tarantino described how he was "blown away" by the film. He felt that Bong succeeded in "recreating the [monster] genre" through focusing on a "weird, f[uck]ed up family". A poll conducted by Film Comment in 2010 regarding the top films of the 2000s, voted by filmmakers, critics, and academics, ranked The Host 71st with 441 votes, ahead of Bong's Memories of Murder (which placed 84th). That same year, French film magazine Cahiers du Cinéma ranked it the 4th best film of the decade. In 2014, South Korean audiences voted The Host the 9th greatest Korean film of all time and Bong's second best (after Memories of Murder).
Many retrospectives in the early 2020s felt that The Host had become more relevant as elements of it later came to reflect the COVID-19 pandemic and its national responses. The Guardian and The Quill compared scenes involving a supposed virus outbreak, which featured quarantine, widespread mask usage, reports that symptoms resemble the flu, anxiety, and misinformation. In 2024, Deadline Hollywood included the film's monster on their list of the "Top 50 Movie Monsters Of All Time". Likewise, A. A. Dowd of The Washigton Post ranked the creature as the scariest cinematic monster of the 21st century. He wrote that "the Gwoemul [sic] is a marvel of singular creature design that suggests a fish crossed with a frog crossed with one of the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park." In 2025, The Hollywood Reporter listed the film among "The Best Anti-Fascist Films of All Time". Upon the release of Mickey 17 that same year, The Host placed second on TheWrap's ranking of all Bong's feature films and first on IndieWire's.