Bong Joon Ho on Restoring ‘The Host’ and Why It Still Resonates 20 Years On: ‘We Are Repeating Our Mistakes’

Bong Joon Ho has revisited “The Host” for a 20th-anniversary 4K restoration, and the Oscar-winning director says the 2006 monster movie’s satire of official misinformation feels newly pertinent.

Magnolia Pictures will return the remastered film to theaters nationwide on Nov. 20. Screenings on Nov. 21 and 23 will include an exclusive conversation between Bong and filmmaker Edgar Wright.

“I can’t believe it’s been 20 years since the release of the film. Time flies,” Bong tells Variety.

In “The Host,” Song Kang-ho plays Gang-du, who nods off on the job at his snack kiosk beside Seoul’s Han River. A monstrous creature crawls out of the water, tears through the crowds on the riverbank and snatches his schoolgirl daughter Hyun-seo, played by Ko A-sung. Authorities declare the creature the carrier of an unknown virus. When Gang-du gets a phone call from Hyun-seo, terrified but alive, he resolves to slip into the sealed-off zone by the river and bring her back. Byun Hee-bong, Park Hae-il and Bae Doo-na co-star as members of his family. New Zealand’s Weta Workshop built detailed models of the creature, and The Orphanage handled visual effects and animation.

Bong’s later film “Parasite” won the Palme d’Or in 2019 and went on to win four Oscars, including best picture, making it the first non-English-language film to take the top prize.

Bong wrote “The Host” with the SARS outbreak in mind. A scene in which U.S. lawmakers concede there never was a virus spreading through Korea was his satire of the misinformation behind the Iraq War, launched over weapons of mass destruction that turned out not to exist. Since then, Bong notes, the world has lived through the coronavirus pandemic.

“Now we’re in the thick of the Iran War and we’re still in the midst of an ongoing war, and whether it’s good history or bad history, it seems like we as a community, as a whole, are repeating our mistakes,” Bong says. “Although the film has stayed the same, the history is repeating itself and making the film relevant again.”

The aim of the restoration, Bong says, was to recreate the experience of watching a fresh 35mm print, as the film was shown when it premiered at Cannes in 2006. “The Host” was shot on Fuji stock rather than Kodak, and Bong wanted to bring back the subtle color qualities he first worked out with his cinematographer Kim Hyung-ku during the shoot.

“Ironically, we were using digital technology to enhance the film look of the movie,” Bong says.

Because the effects work was done in 2005 and 2006, before 4K was available, those shots had to be upscaled. Bong says the team took care that the creature still blended convincingly with the actors and their surroundings, and he is satisfied with the result. He still spots minor flaws in the CGI when he watches the film now, along with parts that leave him slightly dissatisfied.

“But I believe that the film is a record of what I was as a filmmaker at the time, and so I do not have any wishes to correct that,” Bong says. “Just like we don’t edit or rewrite our journals, I feel like it should just be left as it is.”

Bong points to Ridley Scott, who removed a few shots when he re-released the original 1979 “Alien.”

“I also had that kind of impulse, but luckily I was able to hold myself back,” Bong says. “It wasn’t a lot of shots. It was only one or two shots where I thought maybe I could cut that out, but in the end, I just resisted the impulse.”

He declines to say which moment he had in mind, calling it a secret.

Bong did the sound work on “The Host” at Livetone, the Seoul facility where he says he has worked with the same sound supervisor for 25 years, even as cinematographers and other crew members changed from film to film. The studio still holds the original sound library. His films from “Okja” onward, including “Parasite,” have been mixed in Dolby Atmos, and he says “The Host” could be upgraded to that format, though he still needs to confirm which sound format the North American release will use.

The creature’s voice was the area of the original sound design he concentrated on most. The team recorded and processed the sounds of a sea lion, then layered in a vocal performance from Korean actor Oh Dal-su, mixing the two into the sound audiences heard in theaters.

Bong sees little point in remastering his later work, since everything after “Okja” was shot in 4K and finished with Atmos sound. He has, however, made black-and-white versions of “Mother” and “Parasite,” screening them in small theatrical releases and at festivals.

“I have great admiration for black-and-white films,” Bong says. “It’s a process that I enjoyed very much.”

Bong had previously told Variety that after his animated feature “Ally,” he would turn to a slate of crime and horror films. Asked whether that is still the plan, he confirms it.