Parasite

Parasite is one of the strongest films I have recently watched and it does live up to the hype and raving reviews I had seen, from both my friends and people I knew and critics alike. Being the first Asian film I have ever watched, it also served me as a great introduction to Asian cinema, more specifically to South Korean cinema. It is well directed, acted and shot, with a straightforward, yet effective and aesthetically pleasing photography. And there are only two reasons why I chose not to give it a 5/5 rating. The first one, which is the more common reason that makes me differentiate a 4.5 starts film from a 5 stars film, is that it didn't move me as an audience member. It captivated my attention from the beginning and it stayed that way until the very end, but it didn't compel me emotionally (which is strictly a personal thing here). The second reason, and the most important one, is that I found the end to be unnecessarily exaggerated/farfetched. To have the killer (played by Park Myung-hoon) throw the rock on top of Ki-woo's head (played by Choi Woo-shik) after hitting him with it and making him bleed out on the ground, only to reveal that he, somehow survived what clearly should've been two certainly fatal blows, just completely ruined it for me. However, adding the fact that the father (played by Song Kang-ho) was able to escape and then reunited with the family after Ki-woo bought the house was the final drop for me. I wouldn't have found this last part necessarily as unrealistic if it hadn't been preceded by Ki-woo's utterly impossible survival. That was the only major flaw in an otherwise extremely solid film, which left me curious to explore more of Asian cinema.