Why I love Song Kang-ho’s per­for­mance in The Host

West­ern acclaim for East Asian actors can often be eclipsed by a love for the direc­tors whose movies they star in. Take Song Kang-ho – the immense­ly pop­u­lar South Kore­an actor who’s starred in 12 of his country’s high­est gross­ing domes­tic films. Praise is more often direct­ed at the ter­rif­ic movies he’s in than a cel­e­bra­tion of his craft.

Beyond his col­lab­o­ra­tions with Park Chan-wook and Bong Joon-ho (who seem­ing­ly share joint cus­tody of the actor), he’s col­lab­o­rat­ed with main­stream and art­house tal­ents like Kim Jee-woon, Hong Sang-soo, Lee Chang-dong, and with his lat­est award-win­ning turn in Bro­ker, Hirokazu Kore-eda. His peer­less deliv­ery of com­e­dy and pathos gave him anoth­er win before Kore-eda’s found fam­i­ly dra­ma, where he first proved his abil­i­ty to forge and fos­ter an unortho­dox fam­i­ly unit unit­ed in a com­pas­sion­ate goal – even if The Host had 100% more sea mon­sters in it.

Bong Joon-ho’s films have often made a game-chang­ing impact in his home indus­try, with The Host being one of the most seis­mic. Pri­or to The Host, few Kore­an pro­duc­tions had fea­tured CGI effects so exten­sive­ly, and there would be no trick­ery to cheat around show­ing the mon­ster like Spiel­berg did in Jaws. The Host’s water-dwelling crea­ture is shot in plain, reveal­ing wide shots as soon as it ris­es from the Han Riv­er to wreak car­nage on the sur­round­ing bystanders.

It’s here that Gang-du (Song) gets thrust into a cri­sis: his daugh­ter Hyun-seo (Ko Asung) is snatched by the mon­ster out­side their river­side snack shack. Togeth­er with his alco­holic broth­er Nam-il (Park Hae-il), cham­pi­on archer sis­ter Nam-joo (Bae Doona), and scold­ing father Hie-bong (Byun Hee-bong), the frac­tured fam­i­ly must per­se­vere through gov­ern­ment quar­an­tines and mar­tial law to save what Gang-du sees as his last hope for a mean­ing­ful life.

Before the incit­ing mon­ster attack, Gang-du lazi­ly slums around the river­bank with a sleepy gait and a down­cast expres­sion, fit­ted with over­sized sweat­pants and dyed blond hair. Song has always had great pres­ence as a per­former, and his tal­ent for show­ing a character’s sta­tus through phys­i­cal­i­ty is nev­er bet­ter than here. Gang-du projects not just lazi­ness, but a void of pur­pose filled exclu­sive­ly with his devo­tion to Hyun-seo. A slow-wit­ted slack­er who nev­er­the­less cares for his daugh­ter isn’t exact­ly new ground for a char­ac­ter, but Song brings the arche­type to new heights of pitiable feebleness.

Regard­less of how much Gang-du cares about her, Hyun-seo has grown tired of her father’s poor par­ent­ing efforts, and with­in min­utes of observ­ing their dynam­ic, it’s clear how trapped Gang-du is by his own pater­nal lim­i­ta­tions. He rush­es out to greet Hyun-seo at the river­bank, scur­ry­ing around her with a pup­py-like keen­ness, appear­ing more like a dot­ing child than a reli­able father. He’s sav­ing up to buy her a phone with only a recy­cled food pot filled with loose change. It’s sweet, but a lit­tle pathetic.

Gang-du is keen­ly aware that his short­com­ings stop him from mean­ing­ful­ly bet­ter­ing his loved ones’ lives – and when faced with the pos­si­bil­i­ty of los­ing his daugh­ter, this inad­e­qua­cy becomes intol­er­a­ble. The flat­tened shock paint­ed across his face when his daugh­ter is snatched away by the mon­ster per­fect­ly illus­trates how his ambi­tions have out­reached his abilities.

After the attack, Gang-du’s grief is smoth­ered by plas­tic – gov­ern­ment offi­cials quar­an­tine him for com­ing into con­tact with the mon­ster, who they claim is the host of a dan­ger­ous, undoc­u­ment­ed virus. Song’s face stares out from the see-through screen of a quar­an­tine body bag, prac­ti­cal­ly bleed­ing with anguish, and at the hos­pi­tal he’s sequestered by doc­tors and offi­cials need­ing to iso­late and test him. Song’s lum­ber­ing frame lends itself so well to dis­ori­en­ta­tion; there’s a sense of being unteth­ered in all his slouch­ing and swaying.

Song’s great­est moment, poten­tial­ly in his whole career, comes when Gang-du receives a phone call from the sew­er Hyun-seo is trapped in. He becomes gripped by an urgent need to reach her; it’s not a bold, squeaky-clean hero­ism, but an infec­tious, messy pan­ic. He strug­gles to con­vince a police offi­cer that his daugh­ter is out there alive, a com­mu­ni­ca­tion hin­drance com­pound­ed by the fact that Gang-du is still in quar­an­tine, and a thick, translu­cent sheet sep­a­rates him from the rest of the characters.

His head dips, he paws at the mate­r­i­al, his words are con­sumed by gasps – all while the rest of his fam­i­ly talk over him and antag­o­nise the offi­cer they need help from. The sheet adds a phys­i­cal bar­ri­er for Song to push up against, remind­ing him of his weak­ness with every touch. Ulti­mate­ly, he uses props to explain how Hyun-seo is still alive, and the sim­ple motions of putting a phone in his mouth and drop­ping it in a buck­et are filled with a des­per­ate con­vic­tion that Song sells so earnestly.

The fam­i­ly escape the hos­pi­tal and make it to the infect­ed zone, where Gang-du has lit­tle char­ac­ter-reveal­ing grace notes. He jogs behind their ille­gal­ly obtained fumi­ga­tion truck in an effort to dis­in­fect him­self (an act of purifi­ca­tion?) for when he’s reunit­ed with Hyun-seo, and wakes from one of his many naps with a sud­den alert­ness when he clocks the mon­ster out­side – as if he’s fused with his ene­my Ahab-Moby Dick-style. When Hee-bong is killed by the mon­ster, Gang-du ends up a pris­on­er of the Amer­i­can-Kore­an mil­i­tary. He’s back in cap­tiv­i­ty, but now fuelled with a burn­ing pas­sion and deter­mi­na­tion – to the point where anaes­thet­ics have no effect on his energy.

As Gang-du is sub­ject­ed to a lobot­o­my (the virus, it turns out, doesn’t exist), Bong’s cam­era observes him fas­tened to the oper­at­ing table from above, lin­ger­ing on the character’s bab­bling pleas for help as the debil­i­tat­ing surgery is prepped around him. Here, we see the oth­er end of Song’s act­ing spec­trum; instead of giv­ing mute, slack-jawed reac­tions, he’s filled with a furi­ous dis­tress that can­not be sub­dued even by the threat of sharp med­ical instru­ments. It’s not just mov­ing – despite its upset­ting nature there’s still some­thing humor­ous about Song’s bel­low­ing per­for­mance, as if there are no trau­mat­ic low points in Bong Joon-ho’s films that can’t be inject­ed with a dark, amus­ing dynamism.

Escap­ing from the med­ical facil­i­ty sets Gang-du on a col­li­sion course with the mon­ster – and he’s the one to deliv­er the final blow by impal­ing the crea­ture with a pole (a mir­ror to the heavy road sign he clum­si­ly wield­ed dur­ing the first attack). His feet skid across the ground – will they hold? – but they stick, res­olute, his weapon dig­ging deep into the monster’s head. For once, when he real­ly need­ed it, his abil­i­ty matched his deter­mi­na­tion. Hyun-seo, trag­i­cal­ly, died in the creature’s stom­ach while she pro­tec­tive­ly held onto anoth­er of its vic­tims, a young orphaned boy.

In the final scene, Gang-du lives qui­et­ly in the snack bar with his new sur­ro­gate son, and we reflect that hero­ism in The Host isn’t just a process of self-actu­al­i­sa­tion, but a con­nec­tive bond shared with oth­ers – both Gang-du and his new sur­ro­gate son are only alive because mul­ti­ple peo­ple suf­fered to save them.

Song shows Gang-du’s new-found humil­i­ty as capa­bly as he did his lazi­ness, his dis­ori­en­ta­tion, and his burn­ing hero­ics. He spent so long con­sid­er­ing what he would sac­ri­fice to pro­tect the per­son he loves most, with­out con­sid­er­ing she’d be will­ing to sac­ri­fice more her­self. What’s more hum­bling than that?