mediocre and forgettable

Rating: 5/10 (1 December 2019)

Parasite is in my opinion a very Korean movie. What do I mean with that? Well, I will get into that late, but firstly; it was directed by Bong Joon-ho, who is best known for his English language movies "Snowpiercer" and "Okja". Both movies while being overall pretty overdramatic and simple, they at least try to have an atmosphere. They also have a clear message, which however show a very naïve perspective on reality. Even his previous Korean language movies like "mother" and "the host" are very similar in that fashion. "Parasite" however doesn't really show much of that regard. Neither does it have a clear message nor any sort of atmosphere, which in my opinion is very reminiscent of many of the Korean movies I have seen (with the exception of the masterpieces "Burning" and "April snow"). "Parasite" however does have an interesting idea behind it which makes it in my opinion the most bearable of the Bong movies. But that's the only thing good about the movie however, maybe besides the production value. The movie has nice set design and has some good shots in it. It is lacking in many other departments however. The characters, for example are terribly written. They are basically shallow and in some cases only 1 dimensional exaggeration of a single character drope making the movie sometimes feeling dragging and boring, because of its focus on the characters. The soundtrack is lacking with only a few classical pieces and they are not really well placed in the movie in order to create atmosphere, often time being played behind dialog conflicting with the exposition scenes (which shows that the production value wasn't well spend in all places). The acting is decent, considering the director. Nothing bad, but also nothing extraordinary. The story consists of many plot conveniences and a lot of shock factor which ruins the whole idea behind it and makes it very confusing.
So overall I would say this movie was pretty mediocre, that's why I said its pretty Korean. It had a nice idea but doesn't do much with it and only uses it for shock value. It has very uninteresting character and sometimes feels very boring because of it. It is ultimately a very forgettable movie and the only reason I will probably remember it is because it is overhyped by many (kinda like the Korean movie "Oldboy")