Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite sequel isn’t what fans expected: Here’s why it is exciting

Even a few years ago, South Korean film director Bong Joon Ho was the hottest filmmaker in the world. Having the unique distinction of winning both the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and the Best Picture at the Oscars in 2020 for his film Parasite, Bong Joon Ho had revealed that he was in talks about a potential Parasite TV series to be made in the United States. More than five years after making this comment, Bong Joon Ho recently provided an update about the much-anticipated TV show.

Here's everything that we know.

The Parasite TV show would be a spin-off and not a direct remake of the film

Speaking with Deadline, Bong Jong Hoo dropped the latest update about the Parasite TV show:

"The writers are working very hard on it, they're fiercely writing. I think the writing room of that show itself can be another TV show. Just wait a bit longer, it's gonna take a while.

Apart from Joon Ho, Adam McKay of The Big Short fame was also touted to be associated with the project. McKay had hinted at the possible structure of the TV show while he revealed during the HappySadConfused podcast that the HBO show would be set in the same universe as the South Korean film, but would not be an exact remake of the film. He further specified that neither would the show serve as a continuation of the film's storyline.

This is a clever idea on the part of Bong Joon Ho and the other showrunners since the story of Parasite, the film, was remarkably self-contained and provided a fitting conclusion to the tale of the Park family. Any attempt to revisit or stretch their story would result in narrative inauthenticity. Therefore, this might not be what the audience had initially expected from the show, but what the show really needs to succeed.

What did Bong Joon Ho originally say about the Parasite TV show?

The idea of having a TV show centered around the premise of the film first surfaced after Bong Joon Ho spoke in an interview with The Wrap back in 2020, wherein he stated that he had several ideas that were not used in the film and were up for further exploration:

"So I had all these key ideas accumulated from when I started writing the script, I just couldn’t include all those ideas in the two-hour running time of the film, so they’re all stored in my iPad and my goal with this limited series is to create a six-hour-long film.”

Taking up one such idea, the Memories of Murder director had explained:

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"For example when the original housekeeper Mun Gwang (Lee Jung Eun) comes back in the late-night, something happened to her face. Even her husband asked about it but she never answered, I know why she had the bruises on her face. I have a story for that and aside from that why does she know the existence of this bunker?”

Parasite, the film, is available for streaming on Hulu and Apple TV+.

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