Parasyte: The Grey Review
Parasyte: The Grey Review
[info headline="Release date"]7 December 2018[/info]
[info headline="Language"]English, Hindi[/info]
[info headline="IMDb Rating"]7.4[/info]
[info headline="Genre"]Action, Fantasy, Science Fiction[/info]
[info headline="Cast"]Jason Momoa, Amber Heard, Patrick Wilson[/info]
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A decent original story elevated by action and effects
Parasyte: The Grey Review - IGN Image
Steven Nguyen Scaife Avatar
BY STEVEN NGUYEN SCAIFE
UPDATED: APR 13, 2024 1:20 AM
POSTED: APR 13, 2024 1:15 AM
Parasyte: The Grey is now streaming on Netflix
Hitoshi Iwaaki's Parasyte is best known for two things: Its
head-morphing monsters and its two protagonists, ordinary high schooler
Shinichi Izumi and his parasite Migi. Rather than try to replicate the tale of
a teenage host and the alien that becomes his right hand, the new South
Korean-set, live-action spin-off Parasyte: The Grey, goes for a wholly new cast
and an original story.
Under Train to Busan director Yeon Sang-ho, our new
protagonist is Jeong Su-in (Jeon So-nee), a 20something grocery store worker
with a troubled past. When she is attacked and nearly killed on the way home
from work, a parasite enters her body and heals her wounds. From that point,
the parasite turns up as a sort of alternate personality; in a nod to the
obvious Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde parallels, Su-in comes to call it "Heidi.”
Parasyte: The Grey Gallery
19 IMAGES
It's a smart adaptive choice in a series full of them,
creating something distinct rather than staying rigidly faithful. And in a
practical sense, Heidi avoids the technical complexity of an omnipresent
creature like Migi, which only occasionally looks convincing in the two
live-action Parasyte films from Godzilla: Minus One director Takashi Yamazaki.
When Heidi’s in control, she might sprout a full tentacle from half of Su-in's
face. More often, she announces her presence through a blackened eyeball, a pitched-down
voice, and a blank expression.
Which isn’t to say the series skimps on depicting Iwaaki’s
signature creations, which appear consistently throughout Parayste: The Grey in
all their disgusting glory (and with far more frequency than the monsters in
Hellbound, Yeon’s other Netflix series). Unlike Shinichi and Migi or Su-in and
Heidi, other parasites retain only the appearance of their human hosts in order
to blend into society. When it’s time to feed or defend themselves, they shift
into gruesome new shapes, from flailing tentacle-blades to mangled
meat-flowers. The realization of these monsters is truly impressive – amorphous
and emphatically inhuman.
What is your favorite work by Yeon Sang-ho?
Train to Busan
Hellbound
The King of Pigs
Jung_E
Parasyte: The Grey
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Parasyte: The Grey wastes little time laying out its own
ideas – in the first of its lightning-paced episodes, the story skips forward a
few months to jump right into how the emergence of the parasites is already
beginning to reshape society. Suppressed smartphone footage of the creatures
leads the South Korean government to assemble Team Grey, a militarized force
that uses a captive parasite as a “hunting dog” to track down its kin.
Meanwhile, the parasites have banded together under the guise of a Christian
church group, complete with a grisly food pantry for its congregation. These
developments shrewdly acclimate Parasyte to its new geographical setting: Team
Grey’s efforts to control the media evokes South Korea’s own history with
censorship, and the presence of a villainous church comments on the spread of
Christianity in the country. It’s a sign of Yeon retrofitting the material to
fit his personal pet themes, too. Organized religion is also at the core of
Hellbound, and together with Train to Busan, all three projects reflect the
director’s fascination with how the masses react when the world suddenly
changes before their eyes.
But pushing these elements to the forefront through such
quick pacing leaves little room to explore characters or even allow them to
discover things organically. More than once, the principals find themselves at
an all-hands meeting meant to hastily bring both them and the audience up to
speed about the parasites: how they shapeshift, whether they can reproduce, how
they recognize one another, and more are hastily laid out all at once. Heidi
materializes as a fully alternate personality, dispensing with any scenes of
Su-in getting used to her new powers, but as a consequence, we never get to
know much about our rather reserved protagonist.
Parasyte: The Grey mainly gets by on its action and
suspense.
“
Initially, the separation between host and parasite feels
like a clever obstacle – in contrast to the manga, Heidi and Su-in can’t
directly converse with one another. But in practice, Su-in is left without much
of a sounding board for her predicament, and Heidi has little space to explore
the sociological angle about parasites integrating with society. By the time
Su-in finally gets to speak her mind in Episode 4, the season is nearly over.
The supporting cast, which includes allies for Su-in like
cowardly gangster Seol Kang-woo (Koo Kyo-hwan) and kindly detective Kim
Cheol-min (Kwon Hae-hyo), leave more of an impression, but that’s more down to
the actors’ performances than what’s on the page. Team Grey leader Choi
Jun-kyung (Lee Jung-hyun) at least strikes a forceful, intimidating figure,
with her omnipresent black gloves and an asymmetrical haircut that hides a
wound from an up-close and deeply personal encounter with a parasite.
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