1133 Okja

[MitchPerrywinkle]

I remember when Parasite was announced for Cannes feeling cautious about whether it would be any good simply because I despised Okja so much. However you feel about the former, the difference in quality between it and the latter is staggering. The cast is entirely wasted here on a slapdash script, with Dano indeed faring best (but even his character feels like an afterthought to what could have been the draft to a tighter, smarter film. Steven Yeun is woefully misused and the less said about Gyllenhaal, the better).

As someone who has enjoyed nearly every other Bong film (even Snowpiercer for all of its pulp silliness), this is far and away his worst film and one of my least favorite titles in the collection.

[swo17]

Gyllenhaal Gyllenhaal Gyllenhaal! There, I have summoned him

[Finch]

It is absolutely possible that one of Criterion's producers really loves this film and maybe they see this as deserving of re-discovery as Devil in a Blue Dress, but I do wonder if there wasn't an element of "you have to take this along with Time, Dick Johnson Is Dead etc" in play with the Netflix deal (between this, Snowpiercer and Parasite, Bong Joon Ho has been on a downward spiral though Parasite at least has flashes of his former brilliance!). Then again, they also gave Jellyfish Eyes, Armageddon, Border Radio etc a spine number.

[swo17]

Probably Criterion just realized there's little point in physical Netflix releases if not in 4K, and this was Netflix's first high-profile, auteur-helmed title so a natural first choice

[therewillbeblus]

They have a working relationship with Bong, he’s an accessible foreign filmmaker to mass American audiences, and one of the few popular audiences might continue to seek out after literally everyone liked Parasite. I wouldn’t be surprised if they released all of his work they can get their hands on

[MitchPerrywinkle]

Gyllenhaal Gyllenhaal Gyllenhaal! There, I have summoned him

I know this was made in jest, but now I can't help but wonder, had this movie been made in the early 90s, what a version with Michael Keaton in that role would've looked like. I don't think it would be much better, but his innate knack for off-kilter charisma would have made for a less confused (and confusing) performance.

[knives]

Probably Criterion just realized there's little point in physical Netflix releases if not in 4K, and this was Netflix's first high-profile, auteur-helmed title so a natural first choice

Woe being Joe Dante.

[MitchPerrywinkle]

Now I can't help but yearn for a version of this movie directed by Joe Dante starring Michael Keaton.

[Michael Kerpan]

I preferred Okja to Parasite -- but can't say I "loved" either. I found Okja sometimes quite ridiculous, but it did not piss me off the way Parasite did (yes, there were still moments I appreciated, but on the whole ... no).

I fear that Bong and I have come to a parting of the ways (sad -- as I had loved his films ever since Barking Dog).

[swo17]

Probably Criterion just realized there's little point in physical Netflix releases if not in 4K, and this was Netflix's first high-profile, auteur-helmed title so a natural first choice

Woe being Joe Dante.

This is the first I'm hearing about Splatter. Is it any good?

[knives]

No.


But it’s only a half hour. Honestly reading about the making of is more interesting then the film itself.

[domino harvey]

Discussion on the morality of eating animals moved here. Discussion on the morality of this movie existing remains here

[colinr0380]

Gyllenhaal Gyllenhaal Gyllenhaal! There, I have summoned him

You got Maggie instead swo! It's four for Jake and five for their father Stephen.

[swo17]

This...thing...is definitely not Maggie

[Salamanca]

Really would have preferred Criterion showcasing stronger work from another Korean director, such as Im Kwon Taek, Kim Soo Yong, or Kim Ki Young, rather than the aesthetic nadir of someone’s career. This would have made more sense in a boxed set: The Creative Collapse of Bong Joon Ho. Then again Criterion isn’t exactly known for being forward-thinking when it comes to East Asian cinema.

[andyli]

This would have made more sense in a boxed set: The Creative Collapse of Netflix.

Fixed. Now this would have been an idea where a lot of stuff can immediately fit into.

[Salamanca]

This would have made more sense in a boxed set: The Creative Collapse of Netflix.

Fixed. Now this would have been an idea where a lot of stuff can immediately fit into.

Brother hasn’t recovered yet, unfortunately, although if I were to watch Parasite as a Looney Tunes cartoon stretched to interminable lengths, it sort of makes sense. A Bugs Bunny vs Daffy Duck cartoon is much shorter and pithier though.

[swo17]

Gotta love that 1% of the population that thinks hating on Parasite makes them part of an elite class

[Salamanca]

Maybe not an elite class but a certain kind of class, definitely. Just an observation, but it’s funny that a considerable contingent of cinephiles gets prickly when it comes to any criticism of Parasite in the same way that Nolan fanboys react to negative responses to his films. On the other hand, Bong Joon Ho’s films ever since Snowpiercer have spoken to and mirrored elite and bourgeois sensibilities about capitalism. I guess that’s why Parasite won all those accolades. Memories of Murder is by far a more honest and sensitive dissection of economic realities.

[The Curious Sofa]

I thought this was Boon Joon Ho's weakest film but it's still far from a bad film. If Hayao Miyazaki made a live action movie, it would look something like this.

[therewillbeblus]

I'm not as much of a Parasite booster as most, but even those of us here who weighed in on qualms with it ultimately agreed it was a good movie, and this is a film that (magically?) has favorably attracted positive reactions from people in my life who are incredibly sensitive to anything suspenseful or violent. It's clearly doing a lot right to engross viewers with multiple alluring variables rather than operating under one tone, and I'm not sure I've been able to give it full credit for how seamlessly it fuses so many different engaging elements together, and I say that as someone who's seen it three times and consistently liked it a lot each one of them.

[Michael Kerpan]

Gotta love that 1% of the population that thinks hating on Parasite makes them part of an elite class

You really believe that only poseurs (like me) claim to dislike Parasite in order to make ourselves feel more "elite"? Kind of a cheap shot.

[swo17]

What is it they say about jokes you have to explain?

Sorry, I wasn't trying to say "how dare you not like this?" but more trying to draw a parallel between the idea of a 99%/1% class split and the near unanimous support of Parasite. If I was taking a cheap shot at anything, it was Salamanca describing the film as part of Bong's "creative collapse" as though this were commonly received wisdom

[Michael Kerpan]

I don't know that Bong has "collapsed creatively" -- but I would say that he has radically shifted gears. If I had not liked his earlier work so much, I doubt I would have been so distressed over Parasite. In any event, I doubt I will ever really look forward to future films by him (though I may check them out). Whether his work now is "great" or not, it is certainly of much greater appeal to western audiences than his earlier work -- but it is no longer appealing to me (and selfishly, that's all I really care about). .

[Salamanca]

His films have decidedly acquired a patina of Western gloss and just the right amount of modern Orientalism for Western audiences to cream themselves all over. Not surprising since this affliction has infiltrated multiple facets of Korean pop culture since the 2010s (and explains its ubiquity in the media now). Park Chan Wook and Kim Ki Duk pander in a similar manner, though with less visual literacy in my opinion. The Korean society, culture, and sensibilities that I grew up in and with are virtually unrecognizable in Bong Joon Ho’s films since Snowpiercer. If Parasite were more forthright about poverty and marginalization in Korea, then the poorer family would be either darker skinned Southeast Asians or North Koreans (and none of its members knowing English). But of course, Bong Joon Ho, belonging to the privileged class of Korea, doesn’t even recognize this problem in his own culture.

Okja then is the perfect representative of Bong Joon Ho’s pivot toward a more “international” cinema style when he basically began to prostitute himself to Western money, accolades, and audiences. It’s sometimes an ostensibly “Korean” movie, complete with romanticized and anesthesized depictions of “rural life”, “city versus countryside”, and “Asian family values.” This isn’t to say he’s alone in this among Asian directors (Park Chan Wook embraces the “crazy Asian” vibe instead), but Bong Joon Ho is perhaps the most successful example. What a laugh that Korea, a First World country, has become the poster child for economic hardship in Asia.