Why the adulation?

Rating: 4/10 (11 February 2020)

To beat Scorsese,Mendes,Tarantino and Philips AND to beat The Irishman,Once upon a time...,1917, et al - I really was expecting this to be something special. I saw it with an afternoon audience who were mostly in their "twilight" years and the majority of comments at the end expressed puzzlement that this was the best picture of 2019. Lack of laughter during the performance implied that the film missed its' mark as a comedy. Perhaps its' role as a satirical social commentary of the gulf between the poor and the rich in South Korea might have been hitting targets but surely that would only be appreciated by a minority audience.
Personally, I felt that Ho had been given a box set of Ealing comedies made by the likes of Alexander Mackendrick, Charles Crichton, Robert Hamer and Henry Cornelius and simply transferred the tone to a South Korean environment. Of course the influence of Hollywood's "wild man", Quentin Tarantino,had to appear in order to appeal to a modern audience and of course it is there in the second half. I can only imagine that nowadays, the voters at Cannes and the Academy are made up of people too young to remember films such as "Kind Hearts and Coronets","Whisky Galore","The Lavender Hill Mob" and "Hue and Cry". Otherwise they would have realised that what is being exhibited is not "new" and different but is a retread of old classics.
I've watched ho's "The Host" and "Snowpiercer" and can't help but feel that he has potential but is not the maestro some,usually sensible, film critics claim. For one thing he needs to tighten up the pace of his storylines and keep to a central theme without going off at a tangent. There is also a whiff of patronisation here which implies that everyone in the "industry" were surprised that a South Korean could come up with a global hit. The moneymen are surely thinking that this is not a breakout hit for Ho but a breakin hit into a lucrative South East Asian market. Would it be the same hit if it had not been awarded "Best Picture"? I doubt it very much.