PARASITE (South Korea - 2019) Directed by Bong Joon Ho. Written by Bong Joon Ho and Han Jin Wan. Cast: Song Kang Ho, Lee Sun Kyun, Cho Yeo Jeong, Choi Woo Shik, Park So Dam, Chang Hyae Jin, Park Seo Joon, Jung Ziso, Jung Hyun Jun, Lee Jung Eun, Park Myung Hoon, Park Geun Rok, Jung Yi Seo. (R, 132 mins)
"You know what kind of plan never fails? No plan. With no plan, nothing can go wrong." The latest film from South Korean auteur Bong Joon Ho (THE HOST, SNOWPIERCER, OKJA), the dazzling PARASITE deservedly won the Palme d'Or at this year's Cannes Film Festival. Alternately funny, dramatic, tragic, and nail-bitingly suspenseful, it continues Bong's recurring themes of class conflict and economic and social disparity, with enough shades of gray that it never becomes the kind of misanthropic, spleen-venting screed that a less-nuanced filmmaker (or the inevitable US remake) would create. Resourceful Kim Ki-woo (Choi Woo Shik) has the smarts to go to college but it's out of the question: his broke, lower-class family--dad Ki-taek (Bong regular Song Kang Ho), mom Chung-sook (Chang Hyae Jin), and adult sister Ki-jung (Park So Dam)--live in a crummy, stinkbug-and-cockroach infested basement apartment at the end of an alley in the slums of Seoul. The only window offers a view of a dumpster that a local drunk uses as a toilet, and they have to crouch on a raised platform in the bathroom to steal wi-fi from the restaurant above. What little income they have comes from pre-folding boxes for a nearby pizza joint, and even that doesn't work out because Ki-taek's sloppy workmanship gets their pay docked, but they still have enough to get their phones turned back on for another month.
Ki-woo's friend Min (Park Seo Joon) is about to go off to grad school in the US, and on the basis of Ki-woo's past military service where he mastered English, gets him a job as a replacement private tutor for Da-hye (Jung Ziso), the teenage daughter of wealthy tech CEO Park Dong-ik (Lee Sun Kyun). Armed with documents and credentials forged by Photoshop wiz Ki-jung, Ki-woo uses his charm to manipulate Park's nice but passive, gullible wife Yeon-geo (Cho Yeo Jeong) into landing the job, and he immediately sees an opportunity. Yeon-geo believes their rambunctious, attention-deficient young son Da-song (Jung Hyun Jun) has artistic abilities ("It's a chimpanzee," Ki-woo marvels when looking at one of the child's drawings, to which his mother replies "It's a self-portrait"), prompting Ki-woo (who goes by "Kevin" with the family) to introduce Ki-Jung as "Jessica," inventing a story that she's a friend of a friend and an art therapist who went to school in Chicago. With Ki-jung hired as Da-song's art teacher, she devises a plan to land cushy jobs for their parents, first by getting rid of the Parks' driver Yoon (Park Geun Rok) by planting her own dirty underwear in the backseat of the car for Dong-ik to find, then orchestrating the ousting of loyal housekeeper Moon-gwang (Lee Jung Eun), who came along with the house when the Park family bought it four years earlier from the previous owner, the aging architect who designed it and has since moved to Paris.
With the Kim family essentially invading the home and now parasitically latched on to the wealthy Parks, there are any number of directions Bong and co-writer Han Jin Wan can take the story. But before a wacky comedy or an old-school Michael Haneke movie can break out, everything abruptly shifts and they pull the rug out from under you with a shocking development at exactly the midpoint that sets in motion a chain reaction of one jaw-dropping predicament after another. PARASITE is a case study of perfection in terms of balance of tone, plotting, and pacing, displaying an almost Larry David-esque style in the way insignificant events and sometimes humorous and seemingly throwaway lines come back into play much later. There are no wasted or or superfluous lines of dialogue here.
Refreshingly, PARASITE is not a one-percenter rage piece like SNOWPIERCER, since that would just be Bong repeating himself. For all their con games and deceit that sometimes crosses the line into sociopathy, the Kims are a loving family even if they behave in a morally dubious and often illegal fashion in order to scrape by as perpetual have-nots. And the Parks are not the kind of rich and privileged assholes that most movies would make them out to be (at least not for a while). Bong stages one memorable set piece after another that has you alternately laughing out loud and cringing in anticipation of where any scene might go, whether the family is rehearsing their invented personas in their shitty apartment ("Dad, you need to bring it down a little," Ki-woo advises the overacting Ki-taek), or when all four new hires are in the Park home going about their business and pretending they don't know one another and young Da-song loudly points out that they all smell the same ("Now we all have to start using different soap and detergent?" Chung-sook seethes). The house itself is also a significant character, as the camera glides along its long hallways and around its many corners, offering numerous hiding places and allowing Bong to take full advantage of the widescreen frame to demonstrate that the Parks, oblivious to everyday concerns in their life of luxury, have no idea what's going on in their own home (contrast that with the tight, cramped quarters of the Kims' basement apartment and the symbolic way they have to travel on downhill roads and down steep sidewalks and steps to get home). PARASITE is a brilliant film, in many ways a summation of Bong Joon Ho's career thus far, and absolutely deserving of all the accolades it's getting.
OKJA (US/South Korea - 2017) Directed by Bong Joon Ho. Written by Bong Joon Ho and Jon Ronson. Cast: Tilda Swinton, Jake Gyllenhaal, Paul Dano, An Seo Hyun, Giancarlo Esposito, Byun Heebong, Steven Yeun, Lily Collins, Yoon Je Moon, Shirley Henderson, Daniel Henshall, Devon Bostick, Woo Shik Choi, voice of Jungeun Lee. (Unrated, 120 mins)
Visionary South Korean auteur Bong Joon Ho (THE HOST) returns with the Netflix Original film OKJA, his first since 2014's word-of-mouth arthouse/VOD hit SNOWPIERCER. Like SNOWPIERCER, OJKA splits its time between English and subtitled Korean, but instead of a grim, dystopian class struggle among the last remnants of humanity aboard a perpetually-moving train, it's a freewheeling, go-for-broke satire on corporate America, genetically modified foods, and idiotic TV personalities, among everything else Bong throws at the wall to see what sticks. Normally, the kitchen sink mentality on display here is a recipe for disaster, and while some of it is far too forced and over-the-top, its barbs hit and hit hard. The wild tonal shifts are by design, but Bong could've tightened the leash on a couple of the film's bigger names. OKJA opens in 2007, as Lucy Mirando (Tilda Swinton, in her second film for the director after SNOWPIERCER) is installed as the CEO of Mirando, an agrochemical biotechnology corporation obviously modeled on Monsanto. Lucy's taken over the post, replacing her twin sister Nancy, a PR nightmare viewed as "too mean" to sell the Mirando brand to the public. Lucy immediately starts a goodwill campaign involving 26 "super pigs"--genetically modified pigs created in a Mirando lab under the guise of maximum profits with a minimal footprint. And, as Lucy also explains, "They need to taste fucking good."
26 piglets are sent to various Mirando branches all over the world for a ten-year contest where farmers from each region raise the piglet from infancy to see who has the best "super pig." It's all a PR stunt to improve Mirando's dubious reputation and unethical practices, but in the rural farmlands outside Seoul, 14-year-old Mija (An Seo Hyun) lives with her simple farmer grandfather Heebong (THE HOST's Byun Heebong) and has grown attached to Okja, the intelligent super pig that Heebong received as a piglet a decade ago and is now the size of a small elephant. Okja is orphaned Mija's only friend, and when a Mirando entourage--including hapless South Korea branch exec Mundo Park (Yoon Je Moon) and asshole TV personality and MAGICAL ANIMALS host Dr. Johnny Wilcox (an out-of-control Jake Gyllenhaal)--plan a visit to check on the pig's progress after ten years, she's unaware that their intent is to take Okja away to show her off at Mirando's "Best Super Pig Fest" in NYC before sending her straight to the slaughterhouse. Angry at her grandfather for not being truthful with her about Mirando's plans, Mija runs away to Seoul in an effort to rescue Okja. She ends up being aided by a coordinated crew of animal rights activists from the ALF-- Animal Liberation Front--led by fiercely devoted Jay (Paul Dano), whose soft-spoken demeanor clashes with his propensity for violence when need be ("I apologize for putting you in a choke-hold...I promise you it is a non-lethal choke-hold," he calmly tells a security guard he's incapacitating). Meanwhile, at Mirando headquarters in NYC, the media attention over the incidents in Seoul are a concern to the company's PR head Frank Dawson (Giancarlo Esposito), with Lucy's standing as CEO on such shaky ground that bitch-on-wheels Nancy is given her old job to get things back on track.
Co-produced by Brad Pitt's Plan B Entertainment, the $50 million OKJA is heavy-handed at times, but for the most part, it does a good job of balancing the very Spielbergian relationship between Mija and Okja with its desire to be the DR. STRANGELOVE of GMO takedowns (in lesser hands, this would probably be called OKJA AND ME). The targets are easy, but the jokes land and the jabs leave some bruising, whether it's the tacit dismissal of US consumers having any qualms about eating genetically modified food ("If it's cheap, they'll eat it," and "It's all edible except the squeal"), or the extreme level of conviction of some of the privileged ALF kids, like rail-thin Silver (Devon Bostick), who goes days without eating to minimize his footprint and chronically passes out (Jay: "I admire your conviction, Silver, but your pallid complexion concerns me"). There's also one laugh-out-loud moment in a Mirando situation room where everyone's watching the events unfold in Seoul and each person present in the room assumes the exact position of a counterpart in the famous shot of President Obama and others watching the raid that took out Bin Laden, complete with Swinton's Lucy with her hand over her mouth just like Hillary Clinton and madman Dr. Johnny taking the Joe Biden spot. There's no reason for it other than a quick sight gag, but it's the best visual joke of its kind since the one-sheet for THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE PART 2 copying THE BREAKFAST CLUB or the "everybody rips everybody else off" line in SWINGERS that's immediately followed by the cast recreating the RESERVOIR DOGS opening credits.
Sometimes Bong dampens the mood by going too dark, particularly in a horrifying and truly unsettling scene where a terrified Okja is subjected to a forced mating overseen by a drunk, cackling, rolling-around-on-the-floor Dr. Johnny. Gyllenhaal is clearly enjoying himself here, and his character's screechy, grating, whiny voice turning into Gyllenhaal's regular voice when Dr. Johnny goes in front of the camera is a amusing running gag, but the actor's performance might be a little too broad, frequently crossing the line into the grotesque, leaving zero room for any subtlety or nuance. Both of Swinton's characters are varying degrees of shrieking monsters (Nancy: "Fuck you, we're very proud of our accomplishments!" she yells in a warehouse full of genetically modified carcasses and pig parts, a blistering bit of absurdist humor that's as close as OKJA gets to "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!") that seem to spring from her Oscar-winning performance in MICHAEL CLAYTON, but she keeps it in check, even if there's no real reason she has to play twins other than Bong indulging his top-billed star who also has a producer credit on the film. Gyllenhaal, on the other hand, enters the film as Talk Show Robin Williams and just escalates it further from there. There's a couple of riveting action set pieces in Mija's pursuit of Okja, and indeed, the heart and soul of the film is young An, who has a strong resemblance to Bong's now grown-up HOST and SNOWPIERCER co-star Ko Asung. An turns in a remarkable performance as a lonely, sensitive girl willing to go to the ends of the earth to save her only friend. It helps that Okja herself is a convincingly CGI'd creation in a strange, uneven action/horror/comedy/monster movie/corporate satire that tries to be too many things at once, and while it does trip over itself and teeters on the verge of collapsing into a hot mess on a few occasions, it manages to pull pretty much all of them off.
Directed by Bong Joon Ho. Written by Bong Joon Ho and Kelly Masterson. Cast: Chris Evans, Song Kang Ho, Tilda Swinton, Ed Harris, John Hurt, Jamie Bell, Octavia Spencer, Ewen Bremner, Ko Asung, Alison Pill, Luke Pasqualino, Vlad Ivanov, Adnon Haskovic, Emma Levie, Clark Middleton, Tomas Lemarquis, Paul Lazar, Steve Park, Marcanthonee Jon Reis, Karel Vasely. (R, 126 mins)
The instant cult classic of the summer, the $40 million SNOWPIERCER was released in its native South Korea and the rest of Asia a year ago, where it became a blockbuster hit. It opened in Europe not long after, but its US release hit a roadblock. The Weinstein Company acquired the US distribution rights, but expressed concern over its commercial viability if it was to get a wide release. Harvey Weinstein wanted changes made, demanding the 126-minute running time be cut down to 100 minutes with voiceover exposition added at the beginning and end--in short, the same demands he made on Wong Kar Wai's THE GRANDMASTER. SNOWPIERCER director Bong Joon Ho (MEMORIES OF MURDER, THE HOST), making his (for the most part) English-language debut, refused to comply. Weinstein made the changes anyway and focus-grouped both cuts of the film to test audiences. When Bong's version got a better response, Weinstein agreed to release the director's cut, but demoted the film to Radius/TWC, the company's B-movie/genre outfit, presumably for VOD and a brief theatrical run. Word of the film's purported burial spread online and that, coupled with overwhelmingly positive critical reviews, the fact that it was a huge hit overseas, and a knockout US trailer, led to a groundswell of interest from North American audiences who wanted to see the film. It opened on eight screens two weeks ago, expanding to 250 last week, and now it's on VOD in what the Weinstein Company is spinning as a "bold new distribution platform," or some such industry jargon. Maybe it was planned all along, the same way Paramount released PARANORMAL ACTIVITY only because we "demanded" it, or maybe Weinstein's just being a bullying dick, but regardless, SNOWPIERCER is finally being made accessible stateside.
First off, let's not kid ourselves: there's no way this was going to play as a wide-release summer blockbuster, even if Bong relented and cut 26 minutes out of it. Length is not the issue in terms of commercial viability, especially when TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION runs nearly three hours. No, SNOWPIERCER is just a strange film. It exists in that place that precious few films can thrive, especially in today's cinematic culture: the tiny space between the multiplex and the arthouse. There's enough action to please the blockbuster crowd, and SNOWPIERCER has its own singularly unique vision and imagination. But it hammers its points so hard that its overtly aggressive lack of subtlety almost becomes comical at times. Of course, it's intentionally heavy-handed in its mission and its points are valid, but this kind of metaphorical narrative can spill over into self-parody if it's not handled the right way. Bong never loses control of the story, but it goes in directions that will fly just fine in the art house but probably elicit eye-rolling and dismissive snickers in a packed multiplex. That's not a judgment on the intelligence of a movie audience--indeed, SNOWPIERCER, while enormously entertaining and a film I'll revisit frequently, isn't quite as smart or deep as it thinks it is--it's just an observation on a distributor understanding moviegoer expectations and knowing its target audience. Releasing this nationwide on 3000 screens would've resulted in a box-office flop. By letting word-of-mouth spread, SNOWPIERCER has the potential to gain momentum and become something we don't see much of anymore: a genuine sleeper hit.
In the year 2014, the governments of the world worked together to disperse a cooling agent called CW-7 into Earth's atmosphere as a way to combat escalating temperatures caused by global warming. It worked a little too well, freezing the planet and rendering humanity extinct. The relatively few survivors are corralled onto The Rattling Ark, an impossibly-long supertrain on an equally impossible track that circles the entire planet over the course of a year. Cut to 2031, and the Rattling Ark is a high-speed symbol of the world's economic and social structure: it churns in perpetuity, with its own ecosystem and food sources, gathering water from the snow it filters from the exterior of the train, and seemingly self-propelled so long as everyone and everything are in their right place. Order must be kept. The privileged live in comfort toward the front of the train, the underclass "freeloaders" are herded in the rear in horrific living conditions The front dine on sushi, they frequent salons, and their children attend school, the rear subsist on gelatinous "protein bars" made of ground-up insects and vermin and are routinely beaten and subjugated by ruthless, militarized security officials. The denizens of the tail, led by Curtis (Chris Evans), Edgar (Jamie Bell), and the wise Gilliam (John Hurt) are plotting a takeover of the train to make it to the front and gain control of "The Sacred Engine." Mason (Tilda Swinton) is the representative of the Rattling Ark's engineer, the revered Wilford the Benevolent (Ed Harris), the limitlessly wealthy magnate who designed the train and the global track and, as she often reminds those in the tail, was kind enough to allow them to live. Mason and her goonish guards try to quash the uprising but it backfires, and Curtis and company take Mason hostage and start moving up car by car with the help of Namgoong (Bong regular Song Kang Ho), who's been held in the prisoner car with his daughter Yona (Ko Asung, who also played Song's daughter in THE HOST). Both are addicted to a drug called Kronole, which Curtis uses to bribe Nangoong into aiding their cause. Nangoong helped design the lock system on the train and knows how to get through each doors leading to each car, but has his own idea about what to do when they finally get to the front.
Essentially a REVOLT ON THE DYSTOPIAN EXPRESS or THE SACRED ENGINE THAT COULD, if you will, SNOWPIERCER is pretty blunt in its politics: the one-percenters rule the world and will do what they have to do maintain order and keep everyone in their place (it's certainly no accident that there's no middle-class on the Rattling Ark). It's not subtle in its messaging, which is rather obvious and ham-fisted to the point that your enjoyment of the film is probably predicated on where you stand on the political spectrum. Needless to say, this is probably not a film that's going to play well with the Fox News crowd (SPOILER ALERT: Swinton's Mason is not the hero). SNOWPIERCER's strengths lie the sheer audacity of its story and its presentation, incorporating elements of class struggle, post-apocalyptic nightmare, and dark humor bordering on absurdism. It's equal parts Terry Gilliam (as in Hurt's character's surname), Jean-Pierre Jeunet & Marc Caro, Stanley Kubrick, Fritz Lang's METROPOLIS, Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, and Luis Bunuel. It may not be the best film of the summer, but you won't find one that's more ambitious, visionary, and just plain odd.
Based on the 1982 French graphic novel Le Transperceneige, SNOWPIERCER was scripted by Bong and Kelly Masterson (BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU'RE DEAD). The cast is excellent across the board, headed by a never-better Evans, who gets solid support from Hurt, Bell, Song, Ko, and Octavia Spencer as a mother whose son is taken to the front of the train for undisclosed reasons after Wilford the Benevolent's sinister attack dog Claude (Emma Levie) sizes him up with a measuring tape and has him taken away. As good as everyone is, they all take a backseat to an absolutely brilliant performance by Swinton, who's unforgettable as the ruthless Mason. Looking like a political cartoonist's mean-spirited caricature of Margaret Thatcher with a vocal impression to match and a case of the crazy eyes to rival Eva Green in 300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE, Swinton owns SNOWPIERCER whenever she's onscreen (though honorable mention must go to Alison Pill as a deranged teacher indoctrinating the children with the philosophy of Wilford). Whether she's coldly reciting the rules of the train ("Everyone in their place!") or gleefully awaiting the outcome of a clash between the rear dwellers and her officers ("Precisely 74% of you shall die...this is going to be good!") or hospitably offering sushi after she's been taken prisoner, Swinton delivers a master class in scene stealing, and in a just world, both she and Mason's dentures would be duking it out for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar.
