"Parasyte, Part 1" is a profoundly entertaining sci-fi parable
Takashi Yamazaki's "Always: Sunset on Third Street" was an unabashedly melodramatic period piece, with practically each and every scene meant to exhaust the audience's tear ducts. It would've been an unbearable viewing experience if not for the meticulous attention to details, the engaging cast of characters and the carefully-mounted direction. But his latest feature, "Parasyte" (2014, Japan), a two-part science fiction based on a serialized manga written by Hitoshi Iwaaki, has a remarkable mood and restraint and deep philosophical implications. If last year, Japan had given us an excellent samurai film by way of "Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno and The Legend Ends" (also based on a manga), this year they're giving us most probably the best science fiction yet to hit our screens through "Parasyte" (also a two-part film).
If one thinks about it, the movie has a fantastically grotesque scenario. Worm-like creatures invade humans by passing through the nose or ears during their sleep. These creatures then take control of the brain while keeping the body intact, during which they devour other humans as a means of sustenance. However, there's one whom these creatures aren't able to entirely control: a timid and bumbling highschool student named Shinichi (played with likeable awkwardness and fragility by Shota Sometani). Not entirely, because the invader has only gotten as far as the boy's right hand (he was wearing earphones at the time of the attack), which then began to have a life of its own and baptized itself as Migi (Japanese for "right"). The awkward set-up proves to be a good one, as Shinichi and Migi forge an unlikely partnership to fight the cannibalistic monsters and prevent them from completely wiping out the human race and taking over the entire planet. A kind of "buddy cops" racing against time.
On the surface, "Parasyte" is simply another specimen of the body-horror movie. But even if the film stayed that way, it would be good enough. It's because Yamazaki's direction has an assured way of gradually raising up the level of tone and pace of the film for us to be thoroughly entertained. The scenes of fightings and murders are bloody, gory and tense-filled that one would have second thoughts about the film's PG rating. Luckily for us, Yamazaki's and Ryota Kosawa's screenplay ventures into substantial philosophical terrain which makes "Parasyte" a completely engrossing science-fiction fable. It's a creature film with thought-provoking undertones. On that point, it's on the same level as Ishiro Honda's "Godzilla" and Bong Joon-ho's "The Host".
The screenplay plays upon the intriguing point that the creatures' invasion isn't altogether villainous in nature. It's hinted at in the opening female voice-over which accompanies a montage of a polluted Earth. If it's meant to significantly decrease the high probability of the planet's ultimate demise brought upon by a great number of pollution-inducing human activities, then annihilating even just half of mankind might not be exactly a bad prospect. In a sense, the invading parasites are the human race's exterminating angels. This, in turn, brings up a wicked irony: while humans depend on a wide range of living creatures (animals and plants) to survive (and thus further contributing to the planet's destruction), the parasites rely only on one source, us humans (and therefore keeping intact all the other life forms). On the other hand, while the creatures are at it, the depth and range of human emotions (love, sympathy, compassion, joy, sadness, anger, etc) are brought to the fore, the mysteries of which are something that the creatures are hard put to fathom. The parasites only have a single murderous and destructive instinct, while human beings possess such a complex hub of emotions that make it possible to counterbalance whatever deplorable activities they're engaged in with equally praiseworthy ones.
Thus, when one of the creatures (embodying a female highschool teacher) decides to become pregnant with a human child, it becomes a telling indication of how they are unavoidably drawn into the innate human capacity to care, nourish and nurture. Our race isn't altogether doomed to a complete annihilation. As already evoked by Alfonso Cuarón's superb "Children of Men", the singular act of bearing a child constitutes a significant drop of hope in the vast sea of destruction.
Other than a portrait of a young boy's character transformation from being weak and shy to being emboldened and valiant as he comes to realize that a huge task rests upon his shoulders, "Parasyte" is likewise a profound musing on the fate and course of our civilization. Towards the end of the film, the opening voice-over probe is once again heard. By this time, we should already have an idea how to confront such questions. We'll see in the second part if the confrontation becomes full head-on.
If one thinks about it, the movie has a fantastically grotesque scenario. Worm-like creatures invade humans by passing through the nose or ears during their sleep. These creatures then take control of the brain while keeping the body intact, during which they devour other humans as a means of sustenance. However, there's one whom these creatures aren't able to entirely control: a timid and bumbling highschool student named Shinichi (played with likeable awkwardness and fragility by Shota Sometani). Not entirely, because the invader has only gotten as far as the boy's right hand (he was wearing earphones at the time of the attack), which then began to have a life of its own and baptized itself as Migi (Japanese for "right"). The awkward set-up proves to be a good one, as Shinichi and Migi forge an unlikely partnership to fight the cannibalistic monsters and prevent them from completely wiping out the human race and taking over the entire planet. A kind of "buddy cops" racing against time.
On the surface, "Parasyte" is simply another specimen of the body-horror movie. But even if the film stayed that way, it would be good enough. It's because Yamazaki's direction has an assured way of gradually raising up the level of tone and pace of the film for us to be thoroughly entertained. The scenes of fightings and murders are bloody, gory and tense-filled that one would have second thoughts about the film's PG rating. Luckily for us, Yamazaki's and Ryota Kosawa's screenplay ventures into substantial philosophical terrain which makes "Parasyte" a completely engrossing science-fiction fable. It's a creature film with thought-provoking undertones. On that point, it's on the same level as Ishiro Honda's "Godzilla" and Bong Joon-ho's "The Host".
The screenplay plays upon the intriguing point that the creatures' invasion isn't altogether villainous in nature. It's hinted at in the opening female voice-over which accompanies a montage of a polluted Earth. If it's meant to significantly decrease the high probability of the planet's ultimate demise brought upon by a great number of pollution-inducing human activities, then annihilating even just half of mankind might not be exactly a bad prospect. In a sense, the invading parasites are the human race's exterminating angels. This, in turn, brings up a wicked irony: while humans depend on a wide range of living creatures (animals and plants) to survive (and thus further contributing to the planet's destruction), the parasites rely only on one source, us humans (and therefore keeping intact all the other life forms). On the other hand, while the creatures are at it, the depth and range of human emotions (love, sympathy, compassion, joy, sadness, anger, etc) are brought to the fore, the mysteries of which are something that the creatures are hard put to fathom. The parasites only have a single murderous and destructive instinct, while human beings possess such a complex hub of emotions that make it possible to counterbalance whatever deplorable activities they're engaged in with equally praiseworthy ones.
Thus, when one of the creatures (embodying a female highschool teacher) decides to become pregnant with a human child, it becomes a telling indication of how they are unavoidably drawn into the innate human capacity to care, nourish and nurture. Our race isn't altogether doomed to a complete annihilation. As already evoked by Alfonso Cuarón's superb "Children of Men", the singular act of bearing a child constitutes a significant drop of hope in the vast sea of destruction.
Other than a portrait of a young boy's character transformation from being weak and shy to being emboldened and valiant as he comes to realize that a huge task rests upon his shoulders, "Parasyte" is likewise a profound musing on the fate and course of our civilization. Towards the end of the film, the opening voice-over probe is once again heard. By this time, we should already have an idea how to confront such questions. We'll see in the second part if the confrontation becomes full head-on.
- Film verdict: Excellent
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| The host (Shinichi) and the parasite (Migi) form an unlikely partnership to save humankind in Takashi Yamazaki's "Parasyte, Part 1". |
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