Just a little over 10 minutes into The Host, a modern take on the classic creature flick by South Korean director Bong Joon-ho, the monster is spotted hanging on the underside of a river bridge like a sleeping bat. As it drops back into the Han River, a crowd of spectators that includes the mop-topped Gang-du (Song Kang-ho) speculate that the creature might be an Amazonian river dolphin or a Pakistani refugee.

But, when it decides to come ashore a few seconds later, it looks more like a cross between a tadpole and a hunchbacked T-rex as it haphazardly rambles through a crowd, crushing or munching on bystanders. The most heart-wrenching segment of this exhilarating action sequence—and the one that sets the plot of The Host in motion—occurs as Gang-du attempts to drag his beloved daughter Hyun-seo (Ko A-sung) away from the beast. The two fall to the ground for a moment and when Gang-Du gets back up and running he realizes he has mistakenly grabbed the arm of another young girl and his Hyun-seo is standing just feet away from the incredibly toothy beast. Rather than devouring the middle school aged girl, the creature clutches Hyun-seo with its slimy tail and plunges into the river with all the grace of an Olympic swimmer.

A few scenes later, Gang-du receives a call on his cell phone from Hyun-seo, who informs her father that she is still alive and trapped in a Han River sewer. With the help of his father Hie-bong (Byeon Hie-bong) and his estranged siblings, a frequently intoxicated college graduate named Nam-il (Park Hae-il) and a female archer, Nam-Joo (Bae Doo-na), the dopey Gang-du embarks on a mission to find his daughter and save her from the beast. Before confronting the acrobatic and constantly snacking creature, the ragtag family’s main impediment is bypassing the callous South Korean government officials who have quarantined the area around the river.

By allowing the viewer to spend lots of time with Gang-du’s dysfunctional family, director Joon-ho has created a genre movie with surprising depth. One way that The Host differs from other monster and action pictures is in the often humorous and realistic way that Gang-du’s family is depicted. One early scene shows the brood reuniting in a gym-like building to mourn the loss of Hyun-seo. Full of slapstick and pathos, the incredibly emotional segment depicts the brethren drunk with grief and falling over one another as the paparazzi snaps a storm of photos. It’s a messy emotional scene that stands in direct contrast to episodes in other action flicks where characters’ grieving periods are sanitized and shortened so that they don’t distract from the upcoming action sequences.

Another unique facet of The Host is the film’s vaguely political underpinnings. You see the mutated nemesis of the movie was created after an American military official ordered a South Korean employee to dump bottles and bottles of toxic chemicals into a sink that drains directly into the Han River. Throughout the rest of the picture, the American military is shown on television screens doling out questionable information to the trusting Korean people. And, when the American military finally decides to intervene, their proposed solution will most likely affect the region around the Han River for years to come.

While The Host’s special effects-laden creature is a kick to watch, Joon-ho’s look into complicated relationships between family members and modern nations is what proves that monster films can still have bite.

THE HOST ( * * * )

Directed by Bong Joon-ho. • Starring Song Kang-ho, Ko A-Sung, Park Hae-il, Bae Doo-na and Byeon Hie-bong. • R, 119 min. • At the Osio Cinemas.