ONLINE PROGRAM

Summer Film Series: The Host (Bong Joon-ho, 2006, 120 min.)

11:00 am film screening via Blue Jeans                                                 

1:30 pm film discussion via Blue Jeans

Presented by Linda DeLibero, senior lecturer and special advocate for alumni and outreach, and former director of the JHU film and media studies program

Although it’s billed as a monster movie, The Host shows off the same genre-bending hybridity that made director Bong Joon-ho a household name around the world with Parasite. The traditional thrills of a horror film are all here, but The Host is so much more, trenchantly skewering Bong’s familiar targets—US/South  Korean relations, political corruption, the depredations of his country’s hidden caste system, ecological disaster—while applying equal doses of comedy, drama, and heartwarming sentiment. Bong, a master at juggling an audience’s emotions with thrills, chills, and tears, is in top form here, along with Bong regular and Parasite star Song Kang-ho as the hapless Gang-du, whose struggle to save his daughter from the monster of the Han River forces him to find hidden depths of courage and resourcefulness.

$15 fee for guests and subscribers