The Parasite Movie Review

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I know Oscars aren't worth anything these days but I wasn't expecting something bad. Well, maybe not bad but bad enough to get a 6/10 rating from me.
Well firstly, maybe it's not that big of a minus but popular korean movies have only one topic that could be sold to the western audience and it's bit boring at this point; yeah, the economic inequalities and their cultural impact on South Korea are crazy, delusional capitalistic dystopia, cool, but we've all seen it before, they really could get more creative picking the main problem the movie's gonna be about (hey, have you seen that one tiny Netflix series about the same thing? The most viewed drama on the platform that just so happened to be bought and produced after parasite's success?
What was it called? Octopus game? Hmmm?)
I wish I could see a big Korean movie about something else but okay, I'm just being unnecessarily petty here.

Then, the movie starts sequences that are either unfinished or so bland that they'd better be cut off. Like, the English teacher guy (sorry I'm too racist to remember any of their names) being into that girl he tutors. Okay, they like each other. Cooool, I'm gonna forget about it 5 times during the watching because it doesn't matter at all. The young child that's been into Indians? He was on edge of turning the plot into something big all the time but none of those opportunities was used to build the story (the scene where he finds out all the parasites smell the same, the fact he knows morse code and they blink from the basement, the whole ghost thingy, the nap outside scene). It seems to be on purpose not to push the action using his suspicions but it doesn't mean it's a good choice cuz they're setting up something big with his character and then absolutely nothing happens. Every little scene that should lead into some development or a twist of the plot is insignificant.

Aaaand finally the ending. Ehh, if not that ending maybe I'd give it one more star but nope.
The potential was wasted, both by the party scene and the whole voiceover sequence afterwards. Unfortunately, logic has been compromised and I don't even mean those vague events like Mr Dad stabbing Mr Park because that can be explained with some shock response or his stupid motto about not having a plan. I'll even accept how the son made it out alive after being crushed with a giant rock twice, let's call it medical plot armour. But everything else is just screaming to the audience: yooo, you're stupid, we don't have to treat you with respect because you're too damn to figure out holes in the plot!!! Ugh, the son's idea to kill the basement family is just stupid and no one in their right mind would figure out that this is the best solution right now. Okay, let's say he isn't in his right mind. Fine, but you, the writers, have to point at some point that your character is going psycho. All we got is his vague keenness for this rock and a thread with love story with a possible minor that seems to be completely forgotten after he got bashed in the head. What else? Uhh, don't know, the investigation? If this was some random Korean slums where police doesn't care I'd buy the story but I don't see that in a situation of a high class weird almost triple murder that's been on the news. And I obviously mean how they didn't find anything leading to that basement. Okay, CCTV was down, big deal. It's not like everyone was dripping blood that could easily point to the gate behind the shelves, the one that almost for sure must have left some marks on the floor, not even mentioning air flow itself.

...and the actual ending, the letters voiceover. Uhhh, very lazy writing to roll the credits with something like this. Left all the unfinished sequences open, put a big IF in the end (though, it's not even a deep one, it's really a question whether the son gets rich or doesn't, no middle grounds here) and this sort of correspondence explenation-continuation epilogues is just too cheap for my standards.

Okay enough of the rant, for the other hand if was pretty cool to watch in terms of dynamics, pictures were nice, basically the rest of the movie was alright or good. I really liked the concept of moral duality between the two families and they played the tension moments between them well. Intense scenes beginning from the whisky feast, even though lowkey funny, really engaged and it's a shame they were ruined by this finale.