The Host, Bong Joon Ho's iconic monster movie, airs Thursday, October 15, 2026 at 9:00 p.m. on France 4. The feature will also be available for 30 days on france.tv. Released in 2006, it brings together Song Kang-ho, Byun Hee-bong, Park Hae-il, Bae Doona and Ko Ah-sung.
In Seoul, Gang-du runs a riverside snack stand along the Han with his family. When a creature bursts from the water and snatches his daughter Hyun-seo, the Park clan bands together to find her, even as authorities impose a quarantine. Bong Joon Ho blends monster movie, family drama, dark comedy, and political satire.
Premiered at the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight, The Host has established itself as a touchstone of South Korean genre cinema. Song Kang-ho, a longtime collaborator of the director, plays a clumsy father who confronts a catastrophe that quickly spills beyond the family.
The creature, brought to life with effects by The Orphanage and Weta Workshop, serves as a barometer for the political and social fractures surrounding the characters. The film tackles industrial pollution, the heavy-handed handling of a crisis, and inequality, while maintaining a tone that shifts from burlesque to horror and finally to emotion.
This approach to bending the codes of a popular genre foreshadows several motifs that Bong Joon Ho would later develop in Snowpiercer and Parasite. Here, the monster’s spectacle remains inseparable from the gaze on institutions and from an ordinary family left to fend for themselves.
To go further, also check out our picks for the films, series and programs to watch on TV this week, our guide to new releases across all platforms, and today’s pick What to watch today on streaming.
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