While still entertaining, Parasyte: The Grey is a dry and surprisingly serious affair that gets down to business straight away with an immediate cocktail of dystopia and alien-attack mayhem.
7 of the best new Korean drama series to watch in March 2024
7 of the best new Korean drama series to watch in March 2024
Just like in the manga, the show begins as tennis-ball-sized green orbs rain down from the sky, out of which crawl insectoid aliens who find the nearest human host, crawl into their orifices and eat their brains.
A few of these balls fall into a stadium where a crowd of youths are gathered for an EDM festival, which quickly descends into carnage when one of the “parasytes” walks into the middle of the field, splays open its head into a tangle of organic tentacle blades and slices through the crowd.
Soo-in has an altercation with a violent customer at work, who later waits for her outside. This man has just been egged on by some people online to kill someone and has chosen Soo-in as his target. He follows her to an abandoned road before attacking her.
Injured, she crawls into a field, right within striking distance of one of the alien parasyte balls. Before the man can kill her, the parasyte takes over Soo-in’s body and defends itself, slicing right through him. However, unlike the other parasytes, Soo-in still appears to be normal after the attack.
In the original, the parasyte takes over the lead character’s hand. Here, it takes over half of Soo-in’s head. Rather than talk directly to one another, the entities have to take turns controlling Soo-in’s body, although the parasyte can only do so for 15 minutes a day.
One social factor that does seem to interest Yeon here is humanity’s capacity for organisation. At one point, there is a parasyte who explains that, despite the aliens’ physical superiority, humans are more powerful than they are because of their ability to sacrifice for the good of an organisation.
Consequently, the parasytes try to organise and, while they cannot reproduce, their attempts to do so and to protect themselves echo the seminal alien invasion film Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
Yeon’s adaptation lacks some of the fun of the manga, but still provides snatches of wicked entertainment and some inventive production design.
Although it is never less than an engaging watch, one hopes it can carve out its own distinct identity after the three episodes we are reviewing here.
Parasyte: The Grey will start streaming on Netflix on April 5.
