In the morgue at an American base in South Korea, an American doctor orders his Korean assistant to dump a massive amount of cloudy (infected?) formaldehyde, even though it will go directly into the great Han river. The guilt-ridden assistant later commits suicide by jumping off a bridge into the river, but not before he sees something huge swimming in the water.This "something" makes itself known one sunny day when it rampages through the crowd picnicing on the river frontage. This is an awesome monster! It doesn't stand still long enough for me to get a good count of it's limbs, but there's story references to a squid having nine legs before we see the monster. And it has a long prehensile tail with the diamond shape tip of a squid tail. So I think I'm safe in saying that the creature is a monsterized squid.The plot references to the long sucker-"legs" of a squid come from the Park family, operating a snack bar on the river. This is a quirky family, with great characterizations. Grandfather Hie-bong is in charge. One son, Nam-il, in his suit and tie, is a college graduate in need of a job. The daughter, Nam-ju, is participating in the Olympics when the monster makes itself known. And the eldest son, Kang-Du, has a good heart, but he can't seem to do anything right. That is, except for having a daughter, Hyun-seo. She comes home from her day in junior high just in time for the monster to wrap its tail around her and cart her off into the river.Her aunt, Nam-ju, returns home with a bronze medal in archery, but all celebration is forgotten in the grief over the death of beloved Hyun-seo. Then, wait for it, Kang-Du gets a call from his daughter! Her battery is dying, but she has time to plead with her father to find her in the sewers. The monster has placed her, one alive amongst several bodies, in its larder."The Host" is old-fashioned in that, like an old Godzilla movie, it is the fault of man that there is a monster at all. And there is no blood and gore - but this is still a really cool monster and it does enjoy eating people. The government response is typically incompetent. Everyone is quarantined - an American soldier who came in contact with the monster exhibits a virus. The Korean police won't believe that Kang-Du received a call (and refuse to check his phone records). The Americans over-react by spraying everyone with a toxic chemical Agent Yellow.What's a family to do? Put aside internal bickering, escape from the quarantine and go find their little girl, of course! And in the meantime, little Hyun-seo is showing her own mettle, doing what she can to outsmart the monster and protect an orphan boy added to the larder after her.There's a lot of humor, much of it stemming from Kang-Du's goofiness. The action sequences are exciting and the monster, have I mentioned this yet, is really GREAT!"The Host" was South Korea's top-grossing film of all time when it came out in 2006. It deserves its accolades. A scary, intelligently written and beautifully filmed movie. And I usually don't appreciate horror/monster movies. I recommend watching it in Korean with English subtitles. We tried watching it with the option for English dubbing, but we found the dubbing to be so annoying, we switched to subtitles.Happy Reader