Ever since it premiered at the 2006 Toronto Film Festival, Bong Joon-ho's The Host (Gwoemul) has been earning a lot of fans all over the place (including this very blog), and we started hearing the sequel rumblings almost immediately. (And the flick really holds up well to repeat viewings if you ask me. Queue it and see!)

We've been hearing little dribs and drabs recently, but Twitchfilm's Todd Brown just shared some info that seems to confirm a prequel direction. According to Twitch, "the script is being handled by Korean comic artist Kang Full and is set three years prior to the events of the original film." One possible plot structure involves the excavation of an ancient stream ... an excavation that awakens not one but several ravenous beasties. The producers seem to be shooting for a 2009 release date.

Unfortunately we'll have a new (as yet unnamed) director in the prequel/sequel chair, but since I'm such a pathetic sucker for anything with a giant monster in it, I remain happily optimistic.

I will admit that at first, I didn't want to see The Host. As much as I love camp, I wasn't prepared to use one of my TIFF slots on it. However, after a long day of films, I was offered a ticket to the Midnight Madness showing and was very glad that I went and entered Cinematical's ring of Host appreciators. It was a puzzle of strangely-shaped pieces that fit together in the way most horror films don't. As the giant killer tadpole gets ready to attack US screens, it will do so as an award winner.

The film recently scored a bunch of awards at the 2006 Korean Film Awards. Some are more obvious -- it's no surprise that the daylight effects of the water monster scored the film accolades for Best Special Effects, which go along with some of the other technical awards like Best Sound Effects, Best Lighting and Best Cinematography. However, that's not all! The hungry tadpole also scored Best Picture and Best Director. Yes, a horror film slid into Korea's top spot.

Times like this kind of make me wish that the film industry hadn't evolved to its current system. Beyond random blips like My Cousin Vinny, the top honors are over-run with drama, history and social commentary. I can appreciate that all well and good, but it wouldn't hurt to throw some slaughtering tadpoles into the mix. If you follow the "Read" link, you can see the current trailer for the film, which plans to hit theaters on January 29 for a limited release. Keep in mind that although the movie takes you on a rollercoaster of emotions, it's not half as serious as the trailer suggests.

The South Korean monster movie The Host (aka Gwoemul) has been one of the biggest box-office smash hits ever in its home country. Naturally, you know what happens when a foreign film makes tons of money -- an American company decides it's a great idea to remake the film in English. After all, anything in another language is going to be even better in English, right? Look at Point of No Return (remake of La Femme Nikita), The Ring (remake of Ringu) and City of Angels (remake of Wings of Desire) ... yeah, I don't understand why they do it, either. Once in a while it does work: I liked The Departed just fine, although I haven't seen its source, Infernal Affairs, so I don't know if the original is superior. And of course there's always the granddaddy of Americanizations of foreign films, The Magnificent Seven.

It should therefore be no surprise at all to learn that Universal has picked up the remake rights to The Host. The Korean film won't be released in the U.S. until January 27 of next year, but apparently the studio feels certain that we'll love an Americanized version of the film. I saw The Host at Fantastic Fest and I did in fact like the movie a lot -- but I'm not at all sure how it could be adapted for a U.S. setting and still retain its charm. For one thing, the U.S. Army has a moderately bad-guy role in the film. And without giving anything away, I can't see a Hollywood studio-produced film, designed to draw a large audience, with the same ending as the Korean film. On the other hand, American filmmakers are top-notch at depicting hilariously dysfunctional families like the one that faces the creature in The Host ... so perhaps that could work.

If you've seen The Host, do you think an American remake could be successful? (Don't give away the ending when you answer that.) Are there any American remakes that you think are better than their source materials from other countries?

Related links:

• Hooray! US Distribution for The Host!
• TIFF Interview: The Host Director Bong Joon-ho

When I started putting together my Toronto Midnight Madness wish list, the Korean monster mash known as The Host (aka Gwoemul) was at the very top of my list -- partially because I'd been hearing some really good buzz from other blogs and my Cinematical colleagues, but mainly because it's a flick about a genetically mutated fish-like mega-beast who invades the Korean streets and chomps down on civilians left and right. So after sitting down and enjoying the heck out of The Host, I was thrilled to jump across the street and shoot the breeze with director Bong Joon-ho, and here's how that conversation went down:

Scott: How hard is it to juggle multiple genres and have them gel into a cohesive whole?

Bong Joon-ho: To mix all those elements is not exactly like a bartender making cocktails. I don't say "I need 20% of this, 30% of that," but I try to stay faithful to the story, and hopefully the elements come out naturally. Just like my previous film, Memories of Murder, is a story about a serial killer investigation, the humor or the satire just comes out naturally.

As I was working on the screenplay and shooting The Host, I never thought I was "mixing up" those elements, but after the movie came out, people came to me and said "Oh, you mixed together all these different genres." I think the secret regarding this film lies with our actors. Whether they're doing the comedy, the tragedy, or the suspense, they do their best within the reality of the movie. They never overdo it.

That's definitely a testament to your actors. It's certainly not easy to balance broad comedy followed by horror scenes and heroic stuff and moments of sadness. So what monster movies did you love growing up, and which ones inspired you on The Host?

It wasn't a specific inspiration, but M. Night Shyamalan's Signs focuses on the family as opposed to the aliens. So the core narrative of the film is focused on Mel Gibson's family, and that gave me some inspiration there. John Carpenter's The Thing, while not a specific influence on The Host, is a classic monster movie. Also Ridley Scott's Alien.