The Oscar-winning director looks back at his breakout monster movie, The Host — and teases his next project

Two decades ago, in a 2006 interview with a Korean newspaper, Bong Joon-ho made a surprising statement about his then-new horror movie, The Host. The director, who would go on to make Parasite, Snowpiercer, and Mickey 17, revealed that the mutated monster from The Host was based on an actual creature he'd spotted in Seoul’s Han River, 19 years earlier.

"I don't know exactly what it was," Bong said at the time. "What is clear is that it was a living creature, and it wasn't human. Its size was probably similar to a monster from a movie."

I came across this bizarre detail while doing research on The Host for an interview with Bong himself. (The film turns 20 this year and is celebrating with a 4K remaster and a return to theaters.) So when I get on a Zoom call with the director, it's one of the first things I ask about.

"Attending high school comes with a lot of pressure," Bong tells Polygon. "So that's maybe what led to that kind of a delusion."

OK, mystery solved. Bong Joon-ho didn't actually see a mutated river monster when he was in high school, but he did imagine one under the pressure of college-placement exams. (His youthful obsession with another famous monster might have contributed, too, but we'll get to that in a minute.)

Read on as Bong answers six of our most pressing questions about The Host , while also teasing his upcoming animated feature, Ally , which shares a surprising connection with the 20-year-old monster movie.

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