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The film opens with an American military pathologist
commanding a reluctant Korean assistant to violate protocol by dumping over 200
bottles of formaldehyde down
the drain, which leads to the Han River. A few years later, two men are
standing and fishing in Han River when one discovers a mutant amphibian (which is never shown). He releases the
palm-sized creature when it bites him. Four more years later, a man commits
suicide by jumping off a bridge into Han River, but not before noticing that
there's "something dark, underwater."
In the present day, Park Gang-du (Song Kang-ho) is a seemingly slow-witted man who
runs a snack-bar with his father, Hee-bong (Byeon Hee-bong). Hyun-seo (Ko Ah-seong) is a schoolgirl
and Gang-du's daughter. Gang-du's sister, Nam-joo (Bae Doona), is a national medalist archer who has an unfortunate tendency to hesitate, and
his brother Nam-il (Park
Hae-il) is an alcoholic former activist who has not done much since
graduating from university.
Gang-du is delivering a meal to some patrons, and sees a crowd gathering
along Han River. He joins them as they stand near the side of the river and
point at something under the Wonhyo Bridge. It is the creature, now grown. It
drops into the water, and moves towards shore. Gang-du throws a can of beer into
the water near it, and the creature grabs for the can. The other people nearby
then begin to playfully toss other pieces of food to it, but the creature
disappears from view. A few moments later, the creature appears on shore behind
them, and begins to attack and devour people. Gang-du and an American man named
Donald try to fight the creature, and successfully hit it with a street sign,
Donald however, loses his arm to the creature afterwards. As Gang-du runs away,
he sees Hyun-seo emerge from the snack bar and grabs her hand without stopping.
He then stumbles and unwittingly grabs a different girl. A short distance away,
he looks back and sees the creature pull Hyun-seo into the river. Gang-du then
sees the monster dragging her on the opposite bank before disappearing into the
water.
As the family mourns the young girl in a shelter set up for victims of the
attack, government representatives in yellow bio-hazard suits arrive and demand
to know who has had direct contact with the creature. Gang-du admits that he
has, and the family is forced to the hospital, where Gang-du is quarantined. The
Korean government announces that the creature is not only a direct danger, but
also the host of a deadly, unknown virus that they claim infected the American
whose arm had been bitten off. Gang-du receives a phone call from Hyun-seo, who
is not dead, but trapped in a sewer. She is cut off as her cellphone battery
runs out. Gang-du tries to explain to others, but his explanation sounds more
insane than sane to the people at the hospital. Hee-bong believes his son, and
uses up his life savings so that they can escape from the hospital and rescue
Hyun-seo. They are then able to obtain a truck, two non-yellow hazmat suits,
weapons, and a map of the sewer system around the Han River.
The family search the sewers to no avail. They return to their snack stand at
the banks of the Han river to rest for the night. Hee-bong admonishes his
younger son and daughter for lambasting Gang-du, admitting that his son's
slow-wit was caused by him because over the years he wasn't able to provide
sufficient care for his older son as he did with them. They wake to find the
creature watching them. Hee-bong fires on the creature, causing it to attack
them and overturn the snack stand. As the creature tries to get at them inside,
Hee-bong fires a shot that causes the creature to flee. Hee-bong, Gang-du &
Nam-il give chase, firing wildly. Hee-bong is eventually killed by the creature,
and Gang-du is captured by soldiers; Nam-il and Nam-joo escape but are
separated.
In the hospital, Gang-du overhears that there is no virus: the government is
merely perpetuating a charade to save face. The American scientist who lets out
the secret claims that Gang-du is infected in the brain. A team of doctors
perform a frontal lobotomy on Gang-du. Afterwards, a nurse mocks the seemingly
brain-damaged and unresponsive Gang-du. He suddenly takes her hostage with a
syringe full of his "infected" blood, his "slow-wittedness" apparently cured by
the lobotomy, and escapes to find that he is not in a hospital, but the back of
a military truck on the Han River shores. He drives to Wonhyo Bridge in an
ambulance.
Hyun-seo has been trapped in a deep sewer pit since she was spit out by the
creature. The creature periodically drops off victims into the pit, to store for
later. Hyun-seo finds all the others dead or dying except for a young street
urchin named Se-ju. Nam-il goes to a college friend for help, and traces
Hyun-seo's phone call. He is betrayed for reward money, but cleverly escapes.
Before losing consciousness under a bridge, he sends a text message with
Hyun-seo's location to Nam-joo. Nam-Joo goes to the bridge, but comes across the
creature. She is near enough that she has a shot, but just as she has the
creature in her sights, she hesitates. The creature runs past her and she is
knocked unconscious. Hyun-seo tries to climb out of the sewer by a rope
fashioned from her and other victims' clothes, but the creature snatches her and
places her back on her feet. The camera cuts to black as the creature pounces on
her and Se-ju.
Gang-du discovers the feeding pit only in time to see the creature dashing
away with a child's arm dangling from its mouth. He chases it on land as it
dives into the river. Nam-il wakes to see a homeless man who has been tending to
him, and with the man's help and liquor, he makes several Molotov cocktails and
together they take a taxi to the Wonhyo Bridge. Nam-joo also awakes. She sees
the creature and Gang-du run past her and follows them. The three siblings are
led to the riverbank, where the creature attacks demonstrators protesting the
government's use of Agent Yellow - a chemical weapon highly harmful to humans -
against the creature (and non-existent virus). Police press back the
demonstrators, trying to hold them back. The crowd finally disperses as the
creature comes near to the shoreline. All three siblings meet up briefly on top
of the bridge, but Gang-Du leaps from the bridge to chase the creature.
Agent Yellow is released and incapacitates the creature temporarily. Pushing
through the poisonous fumes, Gang-du pulls out the two seemingly lifeless
children from the creature's mouth. Hyun-Seo had grabbed the other child and had
avoided being fully swallowed by grabbing onto a large tooth but the three
siblings discover she has suffocated. The creature revives and tries to return
to the river. Enraged, Gang-du grabs a street sign and begins to battle the
creature. Nam-il also begins to throw his Molotov cocktails at it. The creature,
apparently terrified of fire, continues to flee. The homeless man whom Nam-il
met appears and douses the creature with gasoline, but Nam-il accidentally drops
his last bottle as he attempts to throw it. Nam-joo picks up one of the lit
fragments with her arrow and shoots it into the creature's eye, causing it to
burst into flames, screaming in agony. The creature makes a last attempt to flee
towards the protection of the river, but Gang-du finally kills it by shoving the
street sign through its mouth, piercing its brain.
As Nam-joo and Nam-il mourn over their dead niece, Gang-du manages to revive
Se-ju. In the epilogue, we see Gang-du and Se-ju living as a family in the
rebuilt and cozy-looking snack bar, sometime in the winter. One night Gang-du
believed he saw something move outside. He gets his rifle but then sets it down,
believing it was his imagination. A televised US Senate press release - claiming
that the Korean "disease crisis" was caused by "misinformation" - is drowned out
by their conversation. The child asks him to turn it off, as he finds it boring,
and they eat dinner.
 Copyright(C) 2007
- 2020. All rights reserved.
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