Monsters Behind The Monster Analysis
Monsters Behind The Monster
Introduction
In order to maintain an aura of mystique, a monster usually would not expose its entire physical body in the beginning of a sci-fi creature movie; however, the director Bong Joon-ho subverts the genre convention and “reworks genre convention using them as a framework for exploring and critiquing South Korean social and political issues” (Klein). The story of the film The Host mainly depicts how members of a dysfunctional family use their own ways to rescue the missing daughter, who has been captured by a creature emerging from the Han River in Seoul. The background setting is just like the convention of Hollywood movies. But ironically, all of extrinsic factors involving government and normal citizens …show more content…
On the one hand, the unprecedented growth of the South Korea has improved the average standard of living. On the other hand, excessively worshipping the capitalist modernization, obsessing with the American dream, Korean people have paid “tremendous social and psychological costs” for overly rapid development (Klein). Not surprisingly, the anti-Americanism has derived from public opinions during 1980s. Questioning the uneven relationship between South Korea and the United States, the director Bong embodies this idea in the entire film. The first and the most obvious anti-American symbol is the prologue scene implying that the monster is a product of chemical contamination created at a U.S. military base. After the monster’s attack in public, the news only reports the American soldier as a hero fighting with the monster but ignore Gang-du’s contribution. In the hospital, when an American official orders the doctor to drill into Gang-du’s head, all medical staffs are totally subservient to him. Furthermore, the American military offers South Korean government a poisonous chemical gas named “Agent Yellow” for exterminating the monster without considering the safety of people and
Introduction
In order to maintain an aura of mystique, a monster usually would not expose its entire physical body in the beginning of a sci-fi creature movie; however, the director Bong Joon-ho subverts the genre convention and “reworks genre convention using them as a framework for exploring and critiquing South Korean social and political issues” (Klein). The story of the film The Host mainly depicts how members of a dysfunctional family use their own ways to rescue the missing daughter, who has been captured by a creature emerging from the Han River in Seoul. The background setting is just like the convention of Hollywood movies. But ironically, all of extrinsic factors involving government and normal citizens …show more content…
On the one hand, the unprecedented growth of the South Korea has improved the average standard of living. On the other hand, excessively worshipping the capitalist modernization, obsessing with the American dream, Korean people have paid “tremendous social and psychological costs” for overly rapid development (Klein). Not surprisingly, the anti-Americanism has derived from public opinions during 1980s. Questioning the uneven relationship between South Korea and the United States, the director Bong embodies this idea in the entire film. The first and the most obvious anti-American symbol is the prologue scene implying that the monster is a product of chemical contamination created at a U.S. military base. After the monster’s attack in public, the news only reports the American soldier as a hero fighting with the monster but ignore Gang-du’s contribution. In the hospital, when an American official orders the doctor to drill into Gang-du’s head, all medical staffs are totally subservient to him. Furthermore, the American military offers South Korean government a poisonous chemical gas named “Agent Yellow” for exterminating the monster without considering the safety of people and