Director Bong Joon-ho revealed an interesting connection between his Oscar-winning film Parasite and the critically acclaimed Mad Max: Fury Road. Parasite, which came out late last year, had a historic sweep at the 2020 Oscars. It won both Best International Feature and Best Picture, a first for the ceremony. Joon-ho also took home the trophy for Best Director. This was the first time a non-English language film had won Best Picture.
Fury Road, directed by George Miller, came out back in 2015. Starring Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron, it was also nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. Despite not taking home the coveted award, the film became an instant classic and is considered by many to be one of the greatest action films of all time. Joon-ho himself has made his love for the film well known, selecting it as one of his favorite movies of all time. The two films even had similar black and white releases after their acclaimed runs in theaters.
According to Indiewire, the connection between the two films goes even deeper than just Joon-ho's love of Fury Road. In the commentary for the Criterion edition of Parasite, Joon-ho revealed that Fury Road inspired his work on Parasite in very specific ways. Most notably, the film's pacing was Joon-ho's primary source of inspiration. Fury Road is portrayed as one long car chase, zooming through its plot, while characters are fighting each other atop of vehicles roaming the desert. While this is notably different than Parasite, Joon-ho still found inspiration, saying:
That movie never stops. All of the background information in ‘Fury Road’ appears quite naturally. The camera is always moving, but the information is explained through action. It was quite inspirational to me.
On paper, the two films have hardly anything in common. Fury Road is an effects-laden vehicular extravaganza. Parasite, on the other hand, is a mish-mash of genres, encompassing family drama, ink-black humor, and horror-thriller plot twists. However, the connection between the two makes sense. The pacing of Parasite is as brisk as the Miller directed actioner. The film changes genre on a dime and with deft aplomb. While Fury Road stays firmly in the action genre, it similarly rolls through its plot at a fast pace, unveiling twists and turns as the action rages on around the characters.
The two films have more in common than one might think. Both have changed the way we look at cinema. Many use Fury Road as a reference point when assessing action films' quality in a post-Furiosa world. Parasite also broke barriers, opening up new audiences to international cinema, and winning Best Picture at the Oscars (a first for a foreign-language film). The film even has an HBO adaptation in the works, one that Joon-ho is directly involved with producing. Additionally, Fury Road has a prequel in the works, centered around the now iconic Furiosa character. This newly revealed tidbit about Parasite adds another interesting layer to the already complex film, one that movie fans will surely love.
Source: Parasite Criterion Edition via Indiewire