Parasite (dir. Bong Joon-Ho)

camz09 · 20-08-2019 10:34pm #1

Anyone seen this yet? Man, what a ride. I now understand why it won the Cannes Palme D'Or.
It's not perfect but I thoroughly enjoyed that 2h something thrill ride. Funny, with emotional touches, some commentary on social inequality, some shocking images too.

It's like Shoplifters, Burning and Us had a threesome, this is their baby, but better?

speedboatchase · 21-08-2019 9:41am

When is it released?

johnny_ultimate · 21-08-2019 9:47am

speedboatchase wrote: »

When is it released?

No release date here yet. Curzon have the rights and they have a bad habit of waiting until February - March of the subsequent year before releasing their big ticket Cannes releases. Hopefully they’ll overcome that habit and give it a 2019 release in the end.

Should start showing up at London / Cork film fests over the next few months if nothing else. October release in the US.

PieOhMy · 21-08-2019 2:44pm

Sae this last night and really liked it too. Very invested from start to finish.

p to the e · 21-08-2019 5:41pm

I love Song Kang-ho and Burning so I'll give this a watch when I can. When I first saw Bong Joon-ho doing a film called "Parasite" I immediately thought it was a sequel to "The Host".

BDI · 21-08-2019 5:43pm

Watched last night probably the funniest sex scene I’ve ever seen.
Nodded off in last ten minutes even though I was highly invested. I’ll watch the end tonight.

Great so far was just very tired.

Lionbacker · 22-08-2019 8:01pm

Looking forward to seeing it whenever it does eventually drop on these shores.

For what it's worth, its already ranked amoung the top 10 movies of all-time on Letterboxd!

Slydice · 24-08-2019 2:33pm

A neon film eh? *braces for horror*

trailer:

[Deleted User] · 09-09-2019 1:33am

amongst the best movies of the last few years imo.

Lionbacker · 12-10-2019 6:34pm

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

No release date here yet. Curzon have the rights and they have a bad habit of waiting until February - March of the subsequent year before releasing their big ticket Cannes releases.

Spot on.
Release date of February 7th 2020 has been announced, so quite a wait to see it.

johnny_ultimate · 12-10-2019 7:13pm

Lionbacker wrote: »

Spot on.
Release date of February 7th 2020 has been announced, so quite a wait to see it.

Indeed. Little bit baffled by the release strategy. Wasn’t in London Film Fest (I’d have placed money on it being the surprise film but it turned out to be Uncut Gems), isn’t on in either the upcoming East Asian or Korean film fests in the UK, and I’d say the odds for Cork are therefore slim too. The buzz from the US is electric at the moment so personally think it’s a shame they’ve held it back so long.

Only cause for optimism is a Curzon exec on Twitter hinting / joking there’ll be ‘previews’ before the end of the year:

https://twitter.com/jwgarriock/status/1182217343012937728?s=21

(Also yes I’m too invested in UK / Ireland film distribution news :pac:)

ronnie3585 · 24-11-2019 12:03pm

I watched this last night, wow - what a movie! Absolutely fantastic, easily my movie of the year so far.

cmac2009 · 24-11-2019 1:33pm

ronnie3585 wrote: »

I watched this last night, wow - what a movie! Absolutely fantastic, easily my movie of the year so far.

Agreed. Entralling and tremendous performances all round. Highly recommend.

Drumpot · 30-11-2019 12:17pm

Watched it last night and while enjoyable I’m not getting the 9-10 out of 10 excitement.

I was tired while watching it but at the start

it really does look like the parasites are the poor people exploiting the kind of good nature of the mother of the rich family. And as it goes on you see that money doesn’t change the poor family (you are who you are with or without money, probably more a product of your environment )by the way they treat the dog (she hits dog straight after saying it) and moreso how they treat the cleaning lady and her husband who are effectively a better version of what they are doing. You really would of thought they would have some empathy for them but instead the mother gets all pious until her family is found out by the slip.

You could see it turning

dark from here on and it got very dark.I didn’t find the sed scene funny at all, you basically had a homeless family hiding under a table , listening to rich people call the father a smelly piece of sh*t and then have to listen to them get each other off. I thought it was horrible and uncomfortable.

That moment,

coupled with the stress of the flood, the dealings with the other family in the basement and probably not things through (no plan) ultimately setup the kill at the end.

It is a very good commentary or analogy on how we often wrongly see things as black or white and how we don’t really care about our fellow man if it’s not impacting us directly. The ruthless

way that the poor family exploited not just te rich family but discarded their previous servants was sickening. But equally sickening was the ignronce of the rich who don’t even see their servants or poor people as humans. The husband doesn’t even self reflect on why certain people might smell, Instead just scoffing at the very idea of it.

I’m sure there is other nuances or angles I missed and if I’d of seen it without hearing “masterpiece” type reviews I might it enjoyed it more.

Carcharodon · 02-12-2019 5:34am

Was a bit disappointed, probably because of expectations more than anything. I didn’t know what it was about but heard masterpiece and best film this year so was really excited and didn’t watch any trailer so as try and go in without any expectations on story.
It had some really good scenes, funny and beautifully shot, a lot of Asian movies have great cinematography, “long days journey into night” was breathtaking to watch at the movies even though it was a bizarre movie but this movie did have a good story to go a long with its cinematography.
I did find it a bit drawn out and predictable, I was expecting the movie to show me something I hadn’t seen before (not literally) but it fell flat.
7/10
I

spurious · 16-12-2019 11:56pm

Not sure when it opens here, but go and see it.
Saw it tonight in the Screen Unseen slot.

I think we may have missed the first 3 or so minutes, though we were there at the supposed start time. Nonetheless, it didn't lessen the experience.
Definitely one to watch again. Beautiful to look at, excellent film.

johnny_ultimate · 17-12-2019 12:14am

Bong is the man. Across all his films there’s always a refusal to toe the genre lines, and this is one of the purest realisations yet of his filmmaking philosophy.

The thing is made with clockwork precision. Some say you’re not meant to notice good editing, but I sure as hell noticed this, and it’s immense. The way it holds back for so long, arguably even after it starts revealing some of its weirder surprises, is just a thrill to experience. Match that with the visual direction, which constantly combines razor-sharp compositions with loaded visual metaphor, and it’s simply a pleasure to watch. Bong’s been a great director since Barking Dogs... but he’s Hitchcockian in the levels of precision here.

The plot and the socio-political commentary are so tightly intertwined to be basically inseparable. The characters are battling through the divides that govern this world - that just happens to make for some delightful satirical thrills. Bong isn’t one for easy answers (the boldly unsubtle ending of Okja maybe excepted) so this is a slippery beast - morally ambiguous throughout, and the identify of the eponymous parasite deviously unclear. But again everything is rooted in the societal divides, reflected down to the set design.

There’s a sort of tragic pointlessness to everything that goes down here... but, in one or two moments, hints of hope and brief, sudden moments of relief from the burdens of it all. That said, for all its momentum and witty satire, it came across as a bleak film to me overall - not short on empathy for the characters and almost always lively, but definitely an undercurrent of despair and frustration under it all.

Anyway, looking forward to pondering it more, and maybe even a rewatch. But I’ve been waiting for months to see this and it didn’t let me down. Bong is the man.

johnny_ultimate · 20-12-2019 7:06pm

An actual release is actually finally in sight!

Lighthouse, Palás and IFI have preview screenings on February 3rd - only a satellite Q&A (boo!) but for those of you who can't wait for public release a few days later... (that would have been me a few days ago).

Saruwatari · 20-12-2019 10:47pm

Got my ticket to see it in the IFI. Seems it and the Lighthouse screenings are on at almost the same time, so the QnA must be back-to-back or shared?

johnny_ultimate · 20-12-2019 10:51pm

Saruwatari wrote: »

Got my ticket to see it in the IFI. Seems it and the Lighthouse screenings are on at almost the same time, so the QnA must be back-to-back or shared?

Yeah it's just the same Q&A broadcast from London alas, it's showing in a bunch of cinemas too. Shame they couldn't bring him over in person as he's been doing a heap of q&as in London already over the past few weeks, and now more planned.

Saruwatari · 21-12-2019 8:27pm

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Yeah it's just the same Q&A broadcast from London alas, it's showing in a bunch of cinemas too. Shame they couldn't bring him over in person as he's been doing a heap of q&as in London already over the past few weeks, and now more planned.

Ah, shame. Well, still a night to look forward to!

JP Liz V1 · 10-01-2020 12:14am

A series to HBO

https://ew.com/tv/2020/01/09/parasite-limited-series-hbo/

Niska · 10-01-2020 2:59pm

Nominated for 4 BAFTAs - Best Picture, Director , Original Screenplay and Non English language Film.

http://www.bafta.org/film/awards/ee-british-academy-film-awards-nominees-winners-2020

Hopefully the ongoing award nominations means a larger release than normal for a foreign language pic.

johnny_ultimate · 10-01-2020 11:11pm

Niska wrote: »

Hopefully the ongoing award nominations means a larger release than normal for a foreign language pic.

It’s looking like there should be a good release for it. There’s a few insights into the release strategy in Sight & Sound this month. The distributor Curzon / Artificial Eye has burned a few bridges with the big UK chain Picturehouse by insisting on putting new releases on their streaming platforms at the same time as the normal release. But they’re dropping that requirement for Parasite and going all-in, so it should get into more screens. Hell, I saw it in an Odeon :pac:

They’re not doing the same with Portrait of a Lady on Fire which they are AFAIK making available for streaming too - interesting to see the other world cinema critical darling of 2019 getting a more traditional ‘Arthouse’ release only a few weeks later. Somewhat of a shame since they’re both superb films that deserve to be seen as widely as possible... but no doubt Parasite is the one with greater crossover appeal.

shrapnel222 · 12-01-2020 12:09pm

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

It’s looking like there should be a good release for it. There’s a few insights into the release strategy in Sight & Sound this month. The distributor Curzon / Artificial Eye has burned a few bridges with the big UK chain Picturehouse by insisting on putting new releases on their streaming platforms at the same time as the normal release. But they’re dropping that requirement for Parasite and going all-in, so it should get into more screens. Hell, I saw it in an Odeon :pac:

They’re not doing the same with Portrait of a Lady on Fire which they are AFAIK making available for streaming too - interesting to see the other world cinema critical darling of 2019 getting a more traditional ‘Arthouse’ release only a few weeks later. Somewhat of a shame since they’re both superb films that deserve to be seen as widely as possible... but no doubt Parasite is the one with greater crossover appeal.

definitely my 2 fav films of 2019, although personally enjoyed portrait of a lady on fire more.

SimonTemplar · 28-01-2020 8:02pm

RTE's review of this film is absolutely terrible. The opening paragraph describes it as "nothing more than a toothless screwball comedy" which really is very unfair and basically incorrect. It then goes on a long diatribe trying to justify that appraisal, all of which reads like a first draft in need of many more revisions.

The reviewer claims to "have not lost anything in the nuances and subtleties of translation, I got it all." This itself is an odd remark to make in a professional review but it is undercut by the fact that he says the father is a Mercedes Benz executive, which he is not. He just owns one.

And finally, the last paragraph totally contradicts rest of the review when he says "Ultimately, it's probably worth seeing Parasite because it is a provocative film, it excites views, and will provoke much discussion."

It does contain spoilers including things that happen in the third act.
https://www.rte.ie/entertainment/movie-reviews/2020/0113/1106123-masquerading-as-sharp-satire-parasite-is-limp-escapism/

I don't mind reviewers going against the general critical consensus (Kermode did so for Hereditary for example) but I get annoyed when such professional reviews lack basic competence.

brevity · 29-01-2020 3:41pm

Booked tickets for this in the cork omniplex. There is a live q&a with the director afterwards so that should be interesting

brevity · 03-02-2020 10:49pm

I loved this movie. I’m still taking it in. It was shot beautifully. The scenes in the rain are stunning and I really got a lot from it.

Lionbacker · 03-02-2020 11:26pm

Saw it myself tonight too.
Found it very enjoyable despite it having quite bleak ending. I noticed similarities to Snowpiercer in it's portrayal of class division, so its seems like Bong likes touching on that subject as a basis for a few of his movies & he's done it fantastically well here.

Interesting Q&A tonight as well that was unfortunately cut short.

sporina · 03-02-2020 11:56pm

saw this movie tonight - OMG - i was so invigorated afterwards.. don't feel ready to be able to write a proper review but suffice to say, it was astounding.. such a 3 dimensional piece of work - i wasn't expecting the thriller aspect; it had me on the edge of my seat to say the least.. it seems to hit every genre - v sincere to being quite farcical at times - but none the less, it lives up to its title.. "parasite".. i won't elaborate on that at a risk of spoiling it for those of you who have not yet seen it - but I highly recommend it! wow.

MJohnston · 07-02-2020 4:05pm

Exceelllllent movie! I want everyone in my life to watch it so that I can have conversations about the themes! Incredible performances from Song Kang-ho and Choi Woo-shik.

Parasite (dir. Bong Joon-Ho)

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