The Host

The Host (괴물, 2006) is Bong Joon-ho's Korean monster movie you can watch online on iFILM. A massive amphibious creature crawls out of Seoul's Han River, rampages through a crowded riverbank in broad daylight, and snatches young schoolgirl Hyun-seo right in front of her family.

Everyone assumes she is dead until a phone call proves otherwise: she is alive, trapped somewhere in the sewers beneath the city. So the ramshackle Park family goes after her. There's her slow-witted snack-stand dad (Song Kang-ho), her aging grandfather, an archer aunt who chokes under pressure (Bae Doona), and an unemployed firebrand uncle. The authorities are no help, quarantining the family over a phantom virus while spraying a chemical called Agent Yellow along the river. Bong shows the beast early and in full daylight, ditching the usual lurk-in-the-shadows playbook, and laces the horror with sharp jabs at bureaucrats and the U.S. military.

The story drew on a real incident: in 2000, a U.S. base in Seoul dumped formaldehyde into the Han. The film became the highest-grossing release in Korean box office history at the time and cemented Bong's reputation years before Parasite. Stream The Host (2006) online on iFILM.