Formaldehyde poured down the drain into the Han River turns a simple fishlike creature into a man hungry beast bent on feeding off anything it sees. One man and his family search for the monster in hopes to save his daughter who the beast ran away with but is still supposedly alive.
The movie starts in a medical examiner's room where a doctor docks his assistant on how dusty their facility is, saying that there's dirt everywhere and that before he cleans the room he should dump an assload of formaldehyde down the sink drain, claiming that the bottles are covered in dust, which in turn would run down to the Han River, a major sourse of water for the city. Anyways the doctor orders the assistant to pour it so he does, which in turn runs into the river and mutates the inhabitants of the Han River.
Next scene we're introduced to Mr Yoon, a man at the edge of his rope, or at least the edge of a bridge, ready to jump down into the river and end his life. As he's on the edge of the bridge and ready to jump he notices a dark mass in the water but he jumps anyways.
Que the credits and we see Gang-Du, a lazy freeloader with an obsession with this daughter, Hyun-Seo, so much that he stumbles over at the sight of her, you know the bumbling idiot type. He and Hyun-Seo jump in her grandfather's shop to watch her sister, Nam-Joo, shooting in an archery competition. Gang-Du gets in trouble for eating someone's squid leg and is told to bring free food to the customers that made a complaint on him. So he goes to bring the food and notices that everyone's staring at something hanging from the bottom of a bridge in the river. The creature drops from the bridge into the Han River, spectators standing on the edge staring in curiosity. So as they are staring off into the water the creature blindsides them, running along the shore knocking down anyone in it's way, and chasing everything it sees, eating people left and right. Back in Hyun-Seo's grandfather's store she and her grandfather are watching the continuation of Nam-Joo's match which she loses. Hyun-Seo is so sad she walks outside the store to see that everyone is running from something. Suddenly she's grabbed by Gang-Du and pulled into a run to get away from the creature. She trips and the creature runs up to her, grabs her with it's tail and jumps back into the Han River, pulling her behind it, Gang-Du running after them jumping in the water but it's too late and Hyun-Seo and the beast are gone.
 
The military show up that night and blockade the river from civilians and at the memorial of the victims Nam-Joo and uncle Nam-il come back to find that Hyun-Seo is dead. Gang-Du, Nam-Joo, Nam-il and grandfather all fall over and start to cry hysterically, the media snapping shots and filming their rants. Out of nowhere Hazmat comes in and starts spraying people down, taking Gang-Du off because he claims to have come in contact with the creature. Everyone's forced into a medical facility where they tell Gang-Du not to eat anything until they do tests on him the day after. Well being the idiot he is he breaks into a can of some kinda seafood that night when he's interrupted by a phone call on Hyun-Seo, who's alive and deep in the sewers.
The rest of the movie is the family trying to escape the medical facility and save Hyun-Seo. Will they save her or is she destined to be fish food for some big ugly monster fish with feet?
Personally this movie, to me, is funny as hell, although at times it's kinda depressing and slow. They say this movie is supposed to be the best Asian monster movie since Godzilla and although The Host is a great movie I don't think it adds up to Godzilla, those are two big shoes that this monster couldn't fill. It did however give a good laugh and a great ride of action, horror and originality. The creature itself was done really well, looked really lifelike even in the rain and for that matter the fact that it was raining the majority of the movie added to the eeriness of the flick throughout.
And you ask, would I recommend this movie? Hell yes, but not if you're expecting it to outshine Godzilla, that's asking too much. This movie however has a funny twist on the modern monster horror movies.
Though at times it drags out this movie is definitely worth seeing, at least once, if not more, now as an American I'd say I might need to watch it again to better understand some of the character's motives but I've found that's the case with most Asian cinema. This movie is recommended, no matter what other people will tell you. Be warned though, the ending... though it was a good ending it was still very strange.
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ALTERNATIVE TITLE: Gwoemul
MOVIE YEAR: 2006
DIRECTOR: Joon-ho Bong
WRITING CREDITS: Chul-hyun Baek, Joon-ho Bong
GENRE: Creature Feature
CAST: Kang-ho Song, Hie-bong Byeon, Ah-sung Ko
COUNTRY: South Korea
RUNTIME: 119 min
RATING: 8/10
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