The Host

Opens with a real incident: in 2000 an American mortician at a Seoul military base ordered a large quantity of formaldehyde poured down a drain that fed the Han river. It became a diplomatic issue.

Bong Joon-ho takes that and produces a monster, then makes the monster the least of anybody's problems. The creature appears in full daylight in the first twenty minutes, which no other film in this category does, and the rest is about a shambolic family trying to get their daughter back while the government quarantines them for a virus that does not exist.

It is funny, which nothing else here manages, and the comedy makes the grief land harder rather than softer.

The funeral scene, with the whole family rolling on the floor wailing, is played for laughs and is devastating.

Song Kang-ho is the reason. He plays a man who is not very bright and never once mocks him.