In 2000, a pathologist with the American Military (Scott Wilson) orders his Korean assistant (Brian Lee) to dump 200 bottles of formaldehyde down the drain into the Han River. The fish in the river begin to die off and there are sightings of a strange amphibious creature. In 2006, the slow-witted Park Gang-du (Song Kang-ho) runs a snack bar near the river with his father Park Hee-hong (Byun Hee-bong), his sister Nam-joo, who is a medal-winning archer (Bae Doona), his alcoholic brother Nam-il (Park Hae-il), and his young daughter Park Hyun-seo (Go Ah-sung), who is a bit embarrassed by her family.
A huge monster emerges from the river and begins attacking people. Gang-du’s daughter Park Hyun-seo is snatched away and the creature dives into the river. The Korean government and the American Military argue and quarantine everyone who has had contact with the creature. Gang-du and his family leave the hospital and buy supplies from gangsters to fund a search for Hyun-seo. Two homeless boys are attacked and swallowed by the creature. The creature regurgitates them and one—Se-joo (Lee Dong-ho)—is still alive. Hyun-seo helps the child hide from the creature inside a drain-pipe.
The Park family shoots at the creature the next time it appears, but it kills Hee-bong. Gang-du is captured by the army and Nam-il and Nam-joo are separated. The former meets an old friend named Fat Guevara (Yim Pil-sung) who tells him the government has placed a bounty on his family. Actually, Fat Guevara intends to turn him in. But Nam-il escapes with info on Hyun-seo’s location. The government intends to lobotomize Gang-du to silence him.
As the creature sleeps, Hyun-seo tries to escape with a rope made of clothes from bodies. The creature awakens and swallows both her and little Se-joo. Gang-du escapes from the authorities, helped by a homeless man. The government announces a plan to release Agent Yellow into the river. Gang-du finds the creature and sees Hyun-seo’s arm dangling out of its mouth. He chases it to the place where Agent Yellow is to be released. The creature attacks the crowd protesting the Agent Yellow dump.
The stuff is released and the creature is stunned. Gang-du pulls Hyun-seo out of its mouth, but she is dead. She is still holding onto Se-joo, who is alive. Enraged, Gang-du attacks the creature with his family, shoots it with an arrow, sets it on fire, and impales it on a pole. Later, Gang-du has inherited his father’s snack bar and adopted Se-joo. They have a meal together as the news broadcasts that the entire incident was just misinformation.
The film was directed by Dong Joon-ho, who was always known as a filmmaker in Korea, but we know from Snowpiercer (2013). It was the highest grossing South Korean film and won several prizes at the Asian Film Awards and the Blue Dragon Film Awards. Parts of it were filmed in the real sewers near the Han River and the cast and crew had to be inoculated against tetanus. The creature was designed by Chin Wei-chen and made by the Weta Workshop in New Zealand. It was quite different from most monsters and is very visible on screen, rampaging in full daylight. It was purposely revealed early in the film so the audience would turn their attention to the family.
The formaldehyde dump was a real incident reported in 2000. In general, governments don’t come off very well in the story, increasing our sympathy for the poor protagonists, and there was a thinly veiled antagonism and anti-government satire in the dialogue. A note: if given a choice, do not watch the English dubbed version, which is not very good. You can see it in Korean with English sub-titles and still understand it. The film is dark and sad, but there is a sly comical undercurrent which is missing in the dubbing. Of course, watching it with both dubbing and sub-titles adds an interesting contrast between the translations. It premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2006 and was called the third best film of the year by Cahiers du cinéma. It garnered 97% on Rotten Tomatoes.
The co-writer Bong Joon-ho and the creature designer named it Steve Buscemi, based on his role in Fargo. A statue of the creature was erected on the bank of Han River. A U.S. Military employee was prosecuted for the formaldehyde dump in Korea but was protected by the U.S. Military and never punished in any way. The director consciously chose the heroes to be a poor and dysfunctional family and not action-heroes or brilliant scientists. The emotional ending of the film reveals the writer’s affection for the family, with the daughter dying and the little boy adopted. Families like this do not triumph, but they do the right thing.