Parasite Bong Joon Ho’s Best Work of his Entire Career Grade: A-

Source: IMDB

Before 2019, the only Bong Joon Ho film I've ever seen was 2017's Okja, a good film from Netflix. All the hype and buzz that came with his newest release, I just had to go out of my way and check out the film makers previous work. I've seen all but Snowpiercer and I must say the talent behind Ho is quite impressive. His feature debut Barking Dogs Never Bite was a pretty good start to Ho's career, a really funny yet weird film. No sophomore slump from Mr. Ho as he brings out a straight banger with Memories of Murder, not only a great crime thriller with a hint of comedy, but it is perhaps his most important film of his career, as it did take on real life events that are still discussed today. Then you have two really good films with his fun monster film The Host and another crime drama with Mother. Regardless if these films don't receive an A or if they're not flawless to me: Bong Joon Ho is a film maker worth exploring and to follow up with each creation, because he’s offering something unique and original to the table every single time. The day as come where I finally have seen the Cannes Top Prize winner Parasite, one of the most anticipated films of the year. Parasite tells a story about an unhealthy family, whom makes ends meet making pizza boxes for a pizza company. Hurting for cash, the son gets an opportunity to tutor a daughter whom comes from an extremely wealthy family. The son whom was unqualified for the job, got the job anyway by displaying forgery on his application. The son then realizes this family is so gullible to believe in anything, as it strikes an opportunity for his family to cash in on. So the son pretends he knows a specialist to help the family's son, which happens to be his sister being the specialist helping their son's issues. Then the sister gets the family's driver out of a job, so they can hire their father. Then the father takes out the housekeeper, as they then can hire the mother... This devious plan of theirs can't go on forever... Can it?! What a storyline I must say, it kind of reminds me of this one beloved film that crack my top 20 in 2017 Bad Genius. The Cinematography was fantastic, there so many breathtaking shots in this film. A fair amount of credit has to be given for the wealthy family's house, a beautiful set as pretty much every shot looks beautiful. The camera work in some scenes can be debatable to Climax, as the way the camera moves in some scenes is absolutely fantastic, especially in the third act. The Score was solid as well, I enjoyed the music in this. The cast of this film was pretty good too. I loved the entire family Kang-Ho Song (Father), Hye-Jin Jang (Mother), So-Dam Park (Sister), and Woo-Sik Choi (Son). Regarding chemistry, performance wise, and character wise... All flat out terrific and you know what? That family alone deserves Best Ensemble Cast for a SAG award nomination as well. I know what the family did was wrong, but how can you not love this family?! Besides what they did with their housekeeper, hell yeah I was rooting for this family, they were crown royalty family of the finesse game. Plus they were all flat out entertaining, all family orientated as they wanted to take care of each other, they were so cool despite they did a few sins in the making. I enjoyed the wealthy family as well, not as strong performance wise and chemistry wise as the other family, but they were also good too. I do have a couple flaws to discuss with Parasite, believe it or not this is not a flawless film. I thought the whole thing where the family contacts this cleaning service, so the mom can make the family believe it was legitimate was completely unbelievable. Is a company really going to give away all that personal information over a phone call?! Eh I'm not buying it. Plus I felt like this film never coming back to that was also a mistake, I would feel the company would feel suspicious of where that information was going to. I thought the ending should've ended a minute early, as giving the audience an answer of what unfolds in the future was unnecessary. I think it would be best for the audience to imagine how things would turn out for their son, rather than pretty much showing what is going to happen. It's a treat for the audience to imagine for themselves, how the son would get what he wanted to get done, just end the film a minute early and you would secure the bag for an automatic A. All the hype and praise this film has received, made me not want to watch any trailers for this. The best way to go into this film is to go completely blind and not know a single thing about it, it's the best way to experience this film. I must say... Parasite is one of the best films of the entire year, I absolutely loved the living crap out of this film. The technical aspect is flawless, the performances and characters are fantastic, but where the real meat and potatoes are in this bizarre storyline... It's utterly fantastic. There is not a single dull moment recorded in this film, you're either laughing your ass off or on the edge of your seat. It's crazy how this film was once a straight up a comedic drama, then it turns into a thriller and even a quick slasher film and it's blended absolutely perfectly, a wonderful transition of genre change. How this film escalates to the climax was completely unexpected, that my jaw dropped a couple times, like holy hell how did Ho create a story like this that is so daring, but all works out perfectly?! It was like Ho went back to his roots, but then he thought it would be extremely dope to experiment... I'm just in shock by it all, like this is purely genius what Ho has done with this film. Parasite is the kind of film you have to see in a theater in order to get the complete experience out of it, this is pure cinema at it's finest. Sure it may be not flawless for me, but you can put this film with any film in existence and you can make valid points that it can compete with the best of the best. I may end up seeing this again sometime soon, this blew me away big time and I already have claimed people on my Twitter page should unfollow me if they don't see this movie. Overall, Parasite is a fantastic work of art. I highly recommend this film, PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, SEE THIS FILM! Once again: Thank you Bong Joon Ho for creating your best work of your entire career, as I look forward to more creations in what I hope is in the near future!- Mitch Smietana