The HBO television company (part of the WarnerMedia conglomerate) will be filming a mini-series for the film "Parasites" by South Korean director Pong Joon Ho. The adaptation will be developed with the personal participation of the director. It’s known that Adam Mackay will join him (among Mackay’s recent works, such films as Power and Downgrade, as well as the Heirs series that took the Golden Globe a few days ago).

Both directors will become producers of the mini-series. It is still unknown whether the new tape will become a remake or a continuation of the original picture, but it has already been confirmed that it will be shot in English.

Netflix fought for adaptation rights, but HBO managed to offer Korean filmmakers a better deal.

The plot of "Parasites" is built around the misfortunes of the poor Kim family. The young Kiu is hired by the tutor to the rich Pakam. He seized the opportunity and employed his sister, and later they tricked them into firing other employees at home in order to provide places for their parents (while carefully hiding family relationships).

  • © Shot from the film "Parasites" (2019)

However, the adventure turns into tragic events as the conflict between the rich and the poor develops - the former live in their own world divorced from reality, and the latter cannot stand the arrogance of the rich.

Inspired by Reality

Pong Joon Ho admitted that he took some details of the history of Kiu from his biography: in his student years he also worked as a tutor in a wealthy family. The director said that the creation of "Parasites" was inspired by situations that occurred with people around him from different walks of life.

The theme of the penetration of the poor into the world of the rich Pon Joon Ho began to develop while working on the film “Through the Snow”. And initially he was going to realize his idea in the form of a performance, not a film.

The filming was preceded by a long preparation. The co-author of the script, Han Jin Won, did a lot of research, interviewing homeowners, tutors, housekeepers, and many other professions and social classes whose life was later reflected in the film.

In terms of artistic embodiment, Pong Joon Ho relied heavily on the classics of cinema. He said that he drew inspiration from the tapes of Korean director Kim Ki-young, French master Claude Chabrol and the "king of horrors" Alfred Hitchcock. The director specifically revised Psycho to analyze the structure of Bates’s house (not the motel), which he found very interesting.

Triumph and Prospects

"Parasites" attracted the attention of the world community at the end of May 2019. For the first time in the centuries-old history of the Korean film, it won the Cannes Film Festival award - The Golden Palm Branch.

Then the film was presented at the San Sebastian Film Festival, where it fought for the FIPRESCI Prize, but lost to Alfonso Cuaron's work “Roma”.

By the way, the Parasites cinemas also showed impressive results: they raised more than $ 130 million, took first place among foreign films in the United States, and also updated the bar for the highest grossing picture of South Korean production.

Of course, “Parasites” received a lot of positive feedback from the audience - on the Rotten Tomatoes the film earned 99% freshness (and 93% of the audience rating), and at the end of the year it was awarded the symbolic “Golden Tomato” as the best film released in limited release.

Supportive critics drew attention to the fact that "Parasites" were inspired by the classics. “Somewhere there, the ghost of Alfred Hitchcock rubs his hands pretty much,” said Don Shenahan, author of Every Movie Has a Lesson.

Lea Greenblatt of Entertainment Weekley, while paying tribute to the film’s semantic ambiguity, drew another parallel: “If you compare this film with the Rorschach test, where you need to decide who the parasite is and who its victim is, it’s likely that you will not succeed.”

  • © Shot from the film "Parasites" (2019)

Boston Globe employee Tye Burr saw in the film, first of all, a message to the audience: "Parasites" are generally not about monsters. And yet, at least on one of the almost endless semantic layers of the film, monsters are present - and this is us, ”the critic noted.

At the beginning of 2020, the film received another important award - Golden Globe as the best film in a foreign language (at the same time it was nominated for a prize for the best script, and Pong Joon Ho claimed the title of best director).

Most likely, the tape will also fight for the Oscars: in December, the Parasites expectedly entered the short list of the category "Best Foreign Language Film" and are considered a favorite of the race for the Academy Award.