Acclaimed director Bong Joon-ho’s new movie Parasite gets an official trailer as the film prepares to hit the States this fall. The director of such international hits as The Host, Memories of Murder, Mother, Netflix’s Okja, and perhaps most famously, Snowpiercer, Joon-ho is the rare kind of director whose name on a project is enough to garner widespread attention. That also helps his films when it comes to marketing them to American audiences, as is made evident by the way Neon has chosen to push his new film ahead of its October release in theaters.
It also helps that Parasite recently took home the Palm d’Or at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, where it was nearly unanimously praised by critics. A high approval rating of that kind is enough to build significant buzz around the film well before its release in theaters, and from the look of the official trailer, it would seem Parasite stands a chance at being a rare foreign film that’s also a box office (and critical) hit in the U.S.
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Trailers for Parasite have been bouncing around the internet for a few months now. In fact, one touting the film’s release in Australian theaters has been available since early June, though watching it after this more recent offering, it almost seems like two different films. Thankfully, the newer trailer does a much better job of playing up the broad tonal variances in the film, which allows it to swing wildly from dark comedy to class satire to bloody thriller all in the span of about two minutes. Check out the official trailer for Parasite below:
Parasite follows Ki-taek, played by frequent Joon-ho collaborator Song Kang-ho, and his family as they are embroiled in a wealthy family’s increasingly bizarre circumstances after his son, Ki-woo (Choi Woo-sik) pretends to be an English tutor. The seemingly innocuous con meant to give Ki-woo and his family a leg up financially — they make a living folding pizza boxes in their basement apartment — quickly turns into something else as the story gets darker and darker. While the trailer does a nice job of ratcheting up the tension and showcasing the darkly comedic sensibilities of the film’s writer and director, it also ends on an unsettling note that is reason enough to buy a ticket when the film hits theaters.
A new Bong Joon-ho film is quickly becoming like a release from a variety of talented filmmakers, in that his talents are like IP in and of themselves. In a theatrical marketplace dominated by massive franchises, sequels, and reboots, it’s nice to see an international filmmaker can still make waves in theaters.
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Parasite premieres in the U.S. on Friday, October 11.
