Parasite by Bong Joon-ho is like a Hollywood, almost-shallow version of Burning by Lee Chang-dong

Rating: 5/10 (7 September 2019)

Parasite by Bong Joon-ho is like a Hollywood, almost-shallow version of Burning by Lee Chang-dong. The acting is jarring and obnoxious until you get used to it, the characters and plot are one dimensional, the praised twists by the trailers and critics aren't exciting but shallow and even almost predictable. The scenes that are supposed to be thrilling, like the scene in which the rich family comes home earlier than expected from the vacation to the horror of the parasites, are ridiculous in a cartoonish way without anything of value to contradict it. The cinematography and shots are constantly almost awkward in their cheesy-ness and obvious structure. The film belittles its viewers as well, what only takes away from its own intelligence, by feeding them with a spoon its meaning - immediately explaining in words what was already told in visuals, which more often than not was completely unnecessary and dense. None of the characters make any truly moving progress, and even though the director claims in his movie there are no good and bad guys - he mostly failed to translate this sentiment into the film itself by making one dimensional, static confrontational characters.
No matter how aesthetically calculated cinematic shots are, if there is no core-deep meaning in the film to back them up, they're worth nothing. Moreover, you can't calculate emotion. The visual storytelling of the shots in the film is so obviously calculated almost mathematically, with barely no internal intuition or feeling. And it only makes them awkward, as if the director only now graduated film school and wanted to show off everything he was taught without much experience (which isn't the actual case for Bong Joon-ho).
It seemed like the director tried to achieve what Burning succeeded in obtaining, with addition of supposed-to-be-impressive high budget visuals, music and "show", but failed. Burning is a fantastic example to a mind and emotion intriguing film, full of thrilling twists and turns, true dark and concerning aura and human characters that touch the core of your being, which doesn't belittle it's viewers and taken straight out of the heart. Burning is what everything Parasite attempted to be without success. Bong Joon-ho thought too much, and ended up with barely anything of actual worth. Lee Chang-dong listened to his heart and intuition, and graced us with a beautiful, well crafted masterpiece, which in its humble and quiet progression spoke volumes and echoed in the viewer's mind and heart.
Bong Joon-ho's Parasite is a perfect example to a film which is all bark and no bite.
In one word: disappointing.