Godzilla (1954); American nuclear weapons testing results in the creation of a seemingly unstoppable, dinosaur-like beast.

The Host (2006); Due to pollution with toxic material by an American scientist, a monster emerges from Seoul's Han River and attacks people.

It seems that these times of upcoming terrorism and political suspicion have created a new monster: Gwoemul. An American scientist (of course it's an American) orders his employee to throw old toxic material in the sink. This results into this mutated monster that ends up attacking people, and dumping them in a lost sewer under the bridge over the Han river. Because an ex US-marine officer almost gets killed - but saved by Gang-du, one of the main characters - US authorities get involved and soon they determine that this monster is the host of a potentially dangerous virus.

Gang-du is put in quarantine, after having seen his daughter being taken away by the monster. Gang-du and the rest of his family escape from the hospital, and there starts the great political metaphor of this movie: The poor family trying to rescue one of themselves from the real danger - the monster - is being chased by the authorities. The authorities completely loose focus, and the family becomes the subversive danger, instead of the monster itself. In the meantime they try to conceal the fact that there is absolutely no virus.

Besides the impressive special effects and the camera work totally in the line of the new generation Korean films, this blockbuster has a kind of black sense of humor. I loved the part where the family is hysterically agonizing over the loss of the little girl, an officer comes in reading out someone's license plate and announcing this person has to remove his car quickly, because it might be dangerous…