I liked Bong Joon-ho's The Host, didn't care for Snowpiercer, and while I thought Parasite was decent, I definitely don't consider it the best movie of 2019, nor did it live up to the hype I heard beforehand. I however don't think there's some conspiracy by the Academy Awards or other American institutions to put international movies above American ones for some sort of "social justice", and I'm perfectly OK with them choosing an international movie if they just think it was the best movie of the year. There's been a few years in my time where I thought a non-American movie was better than the American-made ones that year.

I was initially excited to see the movie, especially after hearing some hints of what it was about, and that it was a dark and stunning psychological take on people of different classes. I think class disparity is a huge problem in our country, so it felt very relevant. I also love dark psychological movies, but unfortunately after seeing this, I realized it wasn't that dark and wasn't that psychological. While it explores class disparity, neglect, and cruelty, there's so many problems with both the protagonists (if you can call them that) and antagonists (if that's really what they were).

The movie's biggest flaws are mostly in presentation, but some of the situations and actions of the characters are preposterous and feel very contrived. It's a riveting watch, is fairly well acted and directed, memorable, and has interesting situations, but too many times I had to suspend disbelief to an almost comical degree. The movie does have dark humor, which I appreciated, but I think some of it is unintended. This reminded me of Snowpiercer, as that had so many preposterous situations that I couldn't help but laugh. I think this is almost a signature of Bong Joon-ho, which worked well in The Host, but not so much in these other two movies. I haven't seen Mother, so I'm not sure if it's truly a common or intentional thread in his movies. I've enjoyed a lot of Korean movies, but I think Joon-ho may be overrated at this point.

I also think some of the violence is unnecessary and for shock value, and gets a bit overly-explicit, and some character's reaction to it is a bit odd and from my perspective a bit unbelievable and sometimes comes off as contrived. It seems in these more odd situations, Joon-ho is trying to make some sort of statement or point, which OK I think I understood, but I also don't like things like that being forced because they don't flow naturally with the storytelling and feel more wedged in. I don't know how political the movie is intended to be, but whether I agree with the points or not, I'd at least like a movie to have these ideas flow well and not be ratcheted in.

I would recommend this movie to people who enjoy Korean cinema, topics about class disparity, terror/horror drama, and maybe even just something different to the typical American movie norm. It is well-produced and generally well-directed, the characters and situations are memorable, you'll be shocked, but ultimately if you're anything like me, you'll be disappointed but glad you saw it too.