A monster movie from Korea that rocks

Drop whatever you’re doing and go see “The Host.” This is the first monster movie ever from Korea and it is in the great tradition of the original “Godzilla.” It mixes the jolts of a good horror movie with serious political commentary against U.S. imperialism, militarism, environmental destruction and the neocolonial arrogance of the U.S.

Not only is the film unapologetically anti-imperialist and pro-worker, it’s also arguably the most entertaining movie of the year.

The film was directed by Bong Joon Ho and stars Song Kang Ho, Byeon Hee Bong and Park Hae Il. It takes a strong position against the U.S. military occupation of southern Korea. It portrays participants in the movement against the military dictatorships of Chun Doo Hwan and Roh Tae Woo as heroes. It makes cops and government officials look like bumbling fools, liars or self-important egotists on a power trip.

Ten years ago, Bong would have been jailed for making this film. Today, “The Host” is riding a wave of popular pro-reunification, anti-U.S. occupation sentiment among the youth in south Korea.

To put the movie in its proper historical context, it’s important to know that the people of the southern part of Korea, the so-called Republic of Korea (RoK), have suffered through a string of U.S.-installed or supported military dictatorships of the anti-communist far right since the end of World War II. These dictatorships, which received their orders, weapons and funding from Washington, were completely shot through with collaborators with the earlier Japanese occupation.

The U.S. was only able to impose the RoK government on the people after World War II through a bloody “dirty war” against the guerrilla fighters and civilian supporters of the Chosun Inmin Konghwaguk (Korean People’s Republic-KPR). The KPR was formed by representatives of the mass anti-Japanese People’s Committees on Sept. 6, 1945. Supporters of the KPR dreamed of a united Korea with no foreign troops on its soil, where collaborators with Japanese militarism would be brought to justice.

The RoK army—under the operational control of the U.S.—and fascist death squads like the Northwest Youth spent the late 1940s drowning the Inmin-gun (KPR People’s Army) in blood. All the tactics the U.S. later used in Vietnam were in place: strategic hamlets, passbooks for civilians and their forced recruitment into so-called “defense corps” and the use of Nazi-style collective punishment.

The U.S. puppet dictator Syngman Rhee—who spent the wartime period of Japanese occupation chilling out in California—and his ultra-rightist collaborationist allies dealt the Inmin-gun a defeat through the use of these inhuman tactics.

The liberation forces in the north, led by Marshal Kim Il Sung, achieved victory. They set up the government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Sept. 9, 1948. The people of the DPRK through the guidance of their great leader Kim Il Sung and the Workers Party of Korea were attempting to build socialism under extremely difficult conditions.

Border towns in the north were subject to constant harassment, mortar attacks and deadly raids by the RoK army and fascist death squads. Through this constant harassment, the RoK succeeded in provoking the DPRK into a war that Rhee thought would fulfill his expansionist ambitions. For the U.S., the goal was to roll back the socialist revolution in the north and use Korea as a base to launch aggression against the newly victorious Chinese revolution.

The war had a horrible human cost. Almost 2 million lost their lives in the U.S./RoK drive north. Most of those casualties came from the DPRK. Half a million Chinese Red Army soldiers gave their lives to defend the Korean revolution, paying Korea back for the thousands and thousands of young Koreans who fought in the Red Army against the Japanese in China.

The U.S. seriously considered the use of biological, chemical and atomic weapons against the Korean people. Fascist-minded U.S. General Douglas MacArthur bragged, “I would’ve dropped between 30 and 50 atomic bombs ... strung across the neck of Manchuria... My plan was a cinch.”

Even though President Harry Truman removed MacArthur before he could implement his insane “Dr. Strangelove” plan, the Pentagon still unleashed a holocaust against the Korean people.

In the words of General Curtis LeMay, the architect of the U.S. air war, “Look, let us go up there ... and burn down five of the biggest towns in north Korea—and they’re not very big—and that ought to stop it. ... [O]ver a period of three years or so... we burned down every (sic) town in north Korea and south Korea too.” The U.S. used a new weapon, napalm, to burn thousands of cities, villages and small towns.

The heroic soldiers of the Korean People’s Army and the partisans in the south with the help of Chinese Red Army volunteers beat back the reactionary assault and fought U.S. imperialism and its puppets to a standstill. Unfortunately, the U.S. was able to maintain the division of the Korean nation with its 35,000-plus troop occupation of the south.

The sentiment among the youth in Korea today is that reunification is inevitable. The new generation rejects the crude anti-communism of the ultra-right Grand National Party. They see no “threat” of invasion by their sisters and brothers in the DPRK. Overwhelmingly, the youth want the U.S. military out.

“The Host” reflects this sentiment. In the movie, the monster is created when the U.S. military dumps toxic chemicals into the Han River. This is based on an actual incident that took place in 2000. The U.S. military, it was discovered, had dumped a large amount of formaldehyde into the river as if it belonged to them.

The monster terrorizes the riverfront area of Seoul, then slips back into the Han River, having swallowed up several people including Park Hyun Seo, the young daughter of a working class family. Her father, Park Gang Du, previously regarded by the family as a lazy slacker, is determined to do everything in his power to get Hyun Seo back. The monster emerges in Seoul’s sewer system and regurgitates Hyun Seo and others into a pit containing human remains, to be eaten later. The Park family puts aside its differences to fight the monster the U.S. created and get Gang Du’s daughter back.

In the movie, the U.S. military and the RoK government try to deflect the blame for creating the monster by whipping up media hysteria over a virus allegedly carried by the monster. When this is exposed as a hoax, the U.S.’s real agenda is revealed. They want to fumigate the waterfront with a toxic poison gas called “Agent Yellow”—an obvious reference to Agent Orange—which they attempt to reassure the Korean people is “completely harmless.”

Most people in the U.S. think that the Pentagon only used Agent Orange in Vietnam, but it was in fact used in Korea in the early 1970s to defoliate the demilitarized zone between the north and south.

Near the end of the movie, the masses mobilize huge demonstrations, of the type seen in the 1980s, to stop the U.S. from releasing any more toxic chemicals.

“The Host” is the first south Korean movie to receive favorable reviews from the DPRK press. Upon the film’s release last year, the November issue of Pyongyang’s Tongil Sinbo said, “The movie portrays realistically ... that the American troops occupying south Korea are the real monster that steals people’s lives and destroys their happiness.... The movie ‘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 and death matter directly related to the people.”

I can’t tell you how the movie ends, but it’s worth every penny of the admission. Screw “300”! Go see “The Host” instead!