Mickey 17 (Bong Joon Ho, 2025)

Robert Pattinson in Mickey 17

Cast: Robert Pattinson, Naomi Ackie, Steven Yeun, Mark Ruffalo, Toni Collette, Patsy Ferran, Cameron Britton, Daniel Henshall, Steve Park, Anamaria Vartolomei, Holliday Grainger. Screenplay: Bong Joon Ho, based on a novel by Edward Ashton. Cinematography: Darius Khondji. Production design: Fiona Crombie. Film editing: Jinmo Yang. Music: Jung Jae-il. 

Bong Joon Ho's Mickey 17 is carpet-bomb satire, spread out over so many social, political, scientific, and theological targets that it's bound to hit all of them but inflict no lasting damage on any of them. What it has going for it is a watchable cast, starting with Robert Pattinson, who adds to his reputation as one of our most versatile young actors. Pattison is Mickey Barnes, whom technology allows to essentially live forever as a succession of Mickeys who die and get reborn. By the time the film starts, he's Mickey 17, an "Expendable" on a voyage to settle a new planet. He's essentially a guinea pig, sent out to test whether humans can survive the new environment. Each time something on the planet, such as a virus, kills him, he's re-created out of something like a 3-D printer and his previously stored memories are replaced so he can go out again, after the scientists on-board have discovered a cure or preventative for what killed him. That's the principal set-up, but Bong has more twists to Mickey's story in line. The captain of the spaceship, for example, Kenneth Marshall, is a wealthy politician out for glory. He's played well over the top by Mark Ruffalo in a performance that evokes several contemporary egomaniacs with more money and power than scruples and common sense. And the planet is inhabited by creatures that look like large pill bugs; they turn out to be intelligent beings, setting the plot up for a showdown with the blustering Marshall. It's a darkly funny movie that reflects Bong's somewhat jaundiced view of humankind. 

Barking Dogs Never Bite (Bong Joon-ho, 2000)

Lee Sung-Jae and Doona Bae in Barking Dogs Never Bite

Cast: Lee Sung-Jae, Doona Bae, Kim Ho-jung, Byun Hee-Bong, Go Su-hee, Kim Roe-ha, Kim Gin-goo, Im Sang-soo, Seong Jeong-seon. Screenplay: Bong Joon-ho, Song Ji-ho, Derek Son Tae-woong. Cinematography: Cho Yong-kyou. Production design: Lee Hang. Film editing: Lee Eun Soo. Music: Jo Sung-woo.

After watching several films by Bong Joon-ho, I should know to expect the unexpected, but even his very first feature, Barking Dogs Never Bite, threw me for a loop. What to make of a film whose protagonist, an unemployed academic kept sleepless by the demands of his pregnant wife and a barking dog in his apartment building, captures what he thinks is the offending animal and, failing in his attempt to throw it off the roof or to hang it by its leash, shuts it into a cabinet, but after finding that it was the wrong dog, unable to bark because of a throat operation, returns to the basement to release it, only to find that it's being stewed and eaten by the janitor? Moreover, after this experience, he does find the barker and this time succeeds in throwing it off the roof. And eventually the janitor finds the carcass and eats it too. Would it be fair to say that a failure of tone if not taste has taken place? But tone is something, to judge by Bong's other films, the director thumbs his nose at. Suffice it to say that there's something to offend almost everyone in Barking Dogs Never Bite, which seems to delight in treating animal cruelty as a subject for comedy. The film actually begins with the proclamation that no animals were harmed in its production, which doesn't exactly get Bong off the hook for his depiction of animal abuse. But what it does is remind us that this is "only a movie," or that we should approach the film with the awareness that there's a reason it's going to shock or offend us. The reason, I think is that Bong wants us to question our reactions, to examine why our responses are the way they are. Does the death of the small animal flung from the roof offend us more or less than the death of its somewhat addled human owner? Barking Dogs Never Bite doesn't succeed in part because it meanders a bit into the lives of its ancillary characters, such as the young woman who accidentally witnesses the killing of the second dog and pursues the killer, filled with dreams of being celebrated as a hero on television when she captures him. And then there's the protagonist's attempt to raise enough money to bribe a dean into giving him a professorship. It often seems as if Bong had ideas for at least three movies that he tried to blend into one. Still, as an expression of an ironic vision by a gifted artist, the movie can't be dismissed simply as a failure. Rather, it's an astonishing feature film debut by a director who would find his footing soon enough. 

Okja (Bong Joon-ho, 2017)

Ahn Seo-hyn in Okja

Cast: Ahn Seo-hyun, Tilda Swinton, Paul Dano, Jake Gyllenhaal, Byun Hee-bong, Giancarlo Esposito, Steven Yeun, Lily Collins, Yun Jee-moon, Shirley Henderson, Daniel Henshall, Devon Bostick, Choi Woo-shik, Choi Hee-seo. Screenplay: Bong Joon-ho, Jon Ronson. Cinematography: Darius Khondji. Production design: Lee Ha-jun, Kevin Thompson. Film editing: Yang Jin-mo. Music: Jung Jae-il.

In comparison with the other films by Bong Joon-ho I've seen, Parasite (2019) and Snowpiercer (2013), Okja seems to me a bit of a misfire, like a kids' movie gone dark, Charlotte's Web crossed with The Shape of Water. It often feels over-frantic, when what I want it to do is score its points against corporate hype and hypocrisy cleanly and without shouting them at us. The film centers on the Mirando Corporation's attempt to develop and market a "superpig," which involves creating animals in a lab and then farming the superpiglets out around the world, seeing which environment is most successful. The winner is judged to be the superpig -- which looks like a cross between a pig, a dog, and a hippopotamus -- raised by Mija (Ahn Seo-yeun) and her grandfather (Byun Hee-bong) on their small farm in the mountains of South Korea. The kids' movie part of the film is the affection of the girl for her pig, but of course things go awry when the corporation, headed by the air-headed Lucy Mirando (Tilda Swinton), decides to declare Okja the best of all superpigs -- followed, of course, by introducing all manner of superpig food products, something that Mija never suspects. Lucy's henchmen include Johnny Wilcox, a star of TV animal programs, played a little too frantically against type by Jake Gyllenhaal, and the  suave corporado Frank Dawson, in a more understatedly sinister performance by Giancarlo Esposito. Things go awry when an animal-rights organization, a caricature of PETA (which often seems to caricature itself), staffed by enthusiasts who give themselves pseudonyms like Jay (Paul Dano) and K. (Steven Yeun), take Okja's side and plot to expose the mistreatment of the superpigs in Mirando's terrifying abattoir. There's also a subplot about Lucy and her supposedly more evil sister, Nancy, also played by Swinton, but it feels unnecessary. There is some fun to be had in the film, with its elaborate chase scenes, but I found myself a little exhausted by its end.

Parasite (Bong Joon-ho, 2019)

Choi Woo-sik, Song Kang-ho, Jang Hye-jin, and Park So-dam in Parasite

Cast: Song Kang-ho, Choi Woo-sik, Park So-dam, Jang Hye-jin, Lee Sun-kyun, Jo Yeo-jeong, Jung Ji-so, Jung Hyun-jun, Lee Jeong-eun, Park Myeong-hoon, Park Keun-rok. Screenplay: Boon Jong-ho, Han Jin-won. Cinematography: Hong Kyung-pyo. Production design: Lee Ha-jun. Film editing: Yang Jin-mo. Music: Jung Jae-il.

Comedy that turns violent seldom works. I'm thinking in particular of my recent viewing of Peter Medak's The Ruling Class (1972), which goes abruptly from a giddy satire of upperclass manners into a dark tale about homicidal mania, losing the audience's assent to its original vision. So why does Parasite, which takes a similar turn, work so well that it won over international audiences and walked off with three of the most prestigious Oscars, for picture, director, and screenplay? It's a story of how the Kim family, eking out a living in a sub-basement, conned their way into the household of the wealthy Park family, who live in a classy house designed by a famous architect, but are then undone by a secret built into the house itself. I think it works because Bong Joon-ho's vision is dark from the start, but his touch is light, making us appreciate what drives the Kims -- poverty and class resentment -- and what makes the Parks so vulnerable -- snobbery and vanity. Both families need a comeuppance, the Kims for their lack of scruples, the Parks for their sense of entitlement. Maybe the comeuppance is overkill, but Bong has kept his characters at a slight distance throughout the film, so that we don't feel the shock of loss when they meet their fates. The ambivalence we may feel about them is summed up in the title: Parasite could refer to either family, the Kims who exploit the Parks, the Parks who ride the crest of societal privilege unaware that their good fortune is built on the misery of others.