This scene is from director Bong Joon-ho's acclaimed 2006 box-office blockbuster "The Host." (Korean Film Council) 

By Jung Joo-ri

The remastered high-resolution version of director Bong Joon-ho's 2006 box-office blockbuster "The Host" will revisit audiences in France next month. 

The French film site Allocine said the film remastered in 4K will hit screens in France on March 8. Bong on Feb. 26 will hold a master class at Le Grand Rex in Paris and another the next day at Institut Lumiere in Lyon. 

Thierry Fremaux, director of Institut Lumiere and general delegate of the Cannes Film Festival, will host the two classes, each of which will screen the 4K-remastered version of "The Host." 

As Bong's third feature film, "The Host" depicts the desperate struggle of a family that loses a daughter to a bizarre creature that appears on the Hangang River in Seoul. The movie made its official premiere in France on Nov. 22, 2006. 

Institut Lumiere in Lyon, France, from Feb. 9 to March 22 hosts a retrospective exhibition on director Bong Joon-ho. (Screen capture from Institut Lumiere's official website)

Starting with the remastered film's release in France, Institut Lumiere from Feb. 9 to March 22 will also hold a retrospective of Bong's works and screen seven of his feature films: "A Higher Animal" (2000); "Memories of Murder" (2003); "The Host" (2006); "Mother" (2009); "Snowpiercer" (2013); "Okja" (2017); and "Parasite" (2019). 

In its introduction to the exhibition, the institute said, "Director Bong, who made seven feature films, won the Cannes Film Festival's top award Palme d'Or and claimed four Oscars, is one of the most important cinematic figures of this era." 

"(Bong) embodies the perfect combination of demanding and ambitious auteur cinema and popular arts that captivate audiences," it added. "He is one of the most creative people on the Asian continent." 

etoilejr@korea.kr