Just two months after Parasite made Hollywood history by becoming the first foreign language film to win Best Picture at the Oscars, Bong Joon-Ho’s masterpiece is finally available to stream on Hulu. So naturally subscribers took to the platform to see what all the hullabaloo was about – to the classic “ew subtitles!” reaction that has clouded the marketability of foreign films for decades.
Hulu was not happy about this, and one snarky social media editor took to Twitter to clap back at one Parasite hater. Check out the hilarious exchange below:
It’s apparently a common reaction to the South Korean film considering the director used the time he had on the Golden Globes stage, when he won one of many trophies, to offer this advice to moviegoers turned off by the mild extracurricular of reading subtitles during the viewing of a movie. In Bong Joon-Ho’s words:
Once you overcome the one-inch tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films. Just being nominated along with fellow amazing international filmmakers was a huge honor.
That wasn’t the only ill Twitter comment Hulu decided to defend in Parasite’s honor. Here’s another one:
That’s right. In addition to its surprising Best Picture win, Parasite took home major awards in the Best Directing, Best Original Screenplay and Best International Feature Film categories against films such as Once Upon a Time In Hollywood, 1917 and Joker. It started as an underdog in the Oscar race, but momentum continued to grow until the record-breaking night was cemented.
The win was an especially impactful one for the success of Parasite because the film, made on a production budget of about $11 million, had an incredible run in theaters, grossing at $254 million worldwide. Following its Best Picture win, the movie enjoyed a massive boost of over 200 percent in exposure thanks to the honor.
The movie inspired a housing reform initiative in South Korea to improve conditions in 1,500 semi-basement apartments, per The Korea Herald. And that’s without mentioning the exposure and attention to South Korean and other foreign cinema markets that have long been ignored by the film industry at the Oscars.
Parasite is a thriller-comedy of sorts about a family living in a semi-basement apartment that becomes entangled in a rich family’s life when they start taking jobs within their home. The movie is Bong Joon-Ho’s seventh feature film that spans his 20-year career. His first movie, Barking Dogs Never Bite, monster movie The Host and crime drama Mother are also now available on Hulu too.
Other new movies joining Parasite on Hulu this month are DreamWorks' Abominable, the Kill Bill movies and 2002’s Spider-Man. Feel free to browse around the streaming platform to learn what other movies it's brought in.
