Cross Little Miss Sunshine with an old-school monster movie, add artistic flamboyance, flat-out goofiness, a heavy dose of paranoia and Korean snack foods, and you have The Host.

One of my favourites from the last Toronto International Film Festival, Bong Joon-ho's farcical twist on the Godzilla genre is lovingly crafted right down to the monster itself -- a creepy, slimy product of American military environmental poisoning, with a floral mouth, a prehensile tail and a decidedly non-lumbering gait (it torpedoes through the water and gallops on land like a velociraptor.) In turns it is fascinating, funny and frightening.

But as imaginative as the central amphibian is, it serves as a mere backdrop for Bong's eccentric storytelling and message-mongering. The Host is a redemptive story about a lovably dysfunctional family that can't help but evoke Little Miss Sunshine (though they obviously were created light years away from each other in cultural sensibility).

The film opens with a thuggish U.S. military officer (Scott Wilson) browbeating a Korean lab technician into dumping dirty bottles of chemicals down the drain, despite protests that they'll flow directly into the Han river, Seoul's main artery of water. (The director says this was based on an actual incident involving the U.S. military in South Korea).

Flash ahead to an idyllic day along the Seoul riverfront, and the Park family snack stand -- home to grandpa Hee-bong (Byun Hee-bong), buttoned-down officeworker Nam-il (Park Hae-il), sometime Olympic archer daughter Nam-joo (Bae Doo-na), lovable slacker son Gang-du (Song Kang-ho) and his daughter Hyun-seo (Ko Ah-sung).

Save for the sensible old man, they're a messed-up lot. Even the sister, who's a celebrity, is best known for choking under pressure. But their bickering and frantic comical energy becomes channeled into a single forward force when the carnivorous monster inevitably emerges from the Han, snatching Hyun-seo and carrying her off after a noisy and destructive rampage.

The strength of their newfound bond turns them into an unstoppable force (freed from her insecurities and armed with a bow and arrow, Nam-joo becomes something like a warrior princess), letting nothing slow them down. Not the military, which quarantines them (the "monster" story is debunked by spin doctors who convince the public the city is in the grip of a nasty SARS-like virus). Not the media that dogs them. Not their friends, who become traitors in the face of media attention. Not the cops (clearly the most inept force on either side of the Pacific). And certainly not Old Gooey, who makes his (its?) stand in a sanctuary underneath a bridge.

The thematic touchstones are many, including SARS, environmentalism, and the folly of blind adherence to authority (a somewhat recent sea change in modern Asian cultures, and one that reflects the volatile nature of South Korean politics). But it's all delivered with such free-wheeling eccentricity and even, at times, whimsy, that there isn't even the slightest after-taste of preachiness.

In the end, the real monster is not the slithering beast we're there to watch, but the weight of an entire society. And we're left believing that a ragtag bunch of misfits can overcome that too.

(This film is rated 14-A)
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