I am not sure what all the fuss was about

I was super excited to learn that the oscar-trumping Korean-made Parasite was now on hulu, and so, I set aside the obligatory number of hours needed to watch this masterpiece of theatre - or maybe not. Perhaps no movie could live up to the hype of best director/film/writing/international film ... but I did expect a little more than I received. For some reason I thought this was going to be a psychological horror film where the rich folks were somehow unhinged ... but I was wrong.

On the surface, it's a far-fetched story where a family of (literal) gutter-dwellers finagle their way into all working for an upper-crust family. The main themes cover the hackneyed tropes, like the one percent, classist struggles and (perhaps) some pointless nuclear bomb commentary. Maybe I didn't get the significance of the nuclear references - perhaps due to the tensions between North and South Korea - but I don't think it added anything to the story.

From a cinematic standpoint the movie was beautifully shot and, for the most part, relatively well acted. The story builds very nicely, although I don't think you should rate some of the acting or story points on a western scale. Even if I may have enjoyed watching an amazing film like Oldboy - but, at least for me, it had at least a few scenes which didn't seem like a realistic response. So, perhaps, I shouldn't be too harsh with Parasite - but I should at least list a few issues I did have:

• The rich family is really dumb and unbelievably gullible
• One man kills a man because that man is repulsed by another man's smell
• The family trashes and abuses the house of the rich family for no good reason
• The Have vs Have-Not allegories are bludgeoned into you to the point of being comical
• A man lives in a panic room for 10+ years and whose sole purpose in life is to turn on lights on the stairs
• The conclusion didn't have much weight due to some strange tonal shifts

Perhaps not the most scathing list of issues ... but I just couldn't get a bead on the tone of the film. I was unsure whether to watch this as a drama, thriller, social commentary or comedy. Maybe this hodge-podge of styles was intentional ... but I found it distracting. This movie follows a classic three-act structure but, by the end of act 2, I didn't really feel much desire to want to watch till the end which is not a good sign. Structurally, upon reflection, it was actually done pretty well. I can see that there was some good framing in place which would allow even a virgin viewer the ability to notice some of the cues but it wasn't enough to rescue (what turned out to be) a pretty weak ending. In conclusion, I did actually enjoy parts of the movie but the 'tonal kaleidoscope' kept me from reaching the heights I had expected. I would say you should probably watch the film but probably not expect anything amazing, even with all the accolades.