Review for Parasyte The Movie: Part 1

Introduction

2016 looks to be the year of the Parasyte for Animatsu, which isn’t an indication that they need to be stocking up on industrial strength worming tablets. It actually means that we are getting the Parasyte: The Maxim anime next month and we’re also getting both of the live-action Parasyte feature films, which at the time of writing are English territory exclusives for Animatsu. Body horror is a staple of the anime medium, especially for companies such as Manga Entertainment, and indeed their sister company Animatsu. It was a staple of the nineties anime scene, shows like The Guyver, Genocyber, and the infamous Urotsukidoji, all of which put the human form through the proverbial wringer in horrifically imaginative and grotesque ways. There were things that you could do in animation that you just couldn’t do in live action without a Hollywood budget and special effects factory.


Parasyte is actually a manga from the period, it fits right in with the body-horror genre, and it was even optioned by New Line Cinema, who didn’t quite know what to do with the story that they purchased, and just sat on the rights for ages. By the time they reverted, the special effects industry had moved along far enough for even Japanese cinema to take a decent crack at a Parasyte movie, only they made two back-to-back. We get Part 1 now, and we’ll get the conclusion at the start of June, and in between we’ll also get the first half of the anime. I hope you like bugs.

The question is posed, what would happen if the human population was reduced? We’re a species that over-populate the planet to the point that we use resources far quicker than they can be replenished, and we despoil the environment, effectively burning down the house while we’re still in it, with no other house to go to. Would reducing the human race cut down on pollution, save endangered species, restore the environment? It seems that someone or something has an answer, to put something else at the top of the food chain. The parasite that comes to shore in Japan is a particularly insidious predator, a bug that enters through the ear and invades the host’s brain, subsuming the personality and transforming the host body, using that body to feed... on humans.


Only something goes wrong when a parasite tries to take over student Shinichi Izumi, as he happens to be wearing headphones at the time, and the best that it can manage is invading Shinichi’s hand. Shinichi wakes to find that his hand is no longer his own, and it’s doing some really weird stuff. Groping girls boobs against his will is one thing, but stretching beyond comprehension , growing eyes, reading, watching TV, and eventually speaking is a little too much to handle. These parasites are here to devour humans, but it turns out that Migi, as he names his new hand, gets enough sustenance from Shinichi’s blood, and then having to coexist, they form more a symbiotic relationship than a parasitic one. Shinichi’s worldview begins to alter, while Migi gets a crash course in humanity, and turns out to be even smarter than his host. They’ll have to learn to work together, as the other parasites are smart too, and they quickly learn to move beyond serial killing and cannibalism to infiltration and global conquest. Shinichi and Migi might be the only two that can save the world.

The Disc

Parasyte: The Movie Part 1 gets a decent transfer on this Blu-ray, a 2.40:1 widescreen 1080p transfer from a digital source. The image is clear throughout, detail levels are good, although there might be some slight banding in a couple of scenes, and blacks aren’t quite that well defined, with shadow detail somewhat wanting. The film’s look is pretty strong, a grimy, slight sepia toned feel to proceedings that suits the mood of the story. There were a couple of points where the shaky-cam got a little too aggressive for my liking. You have the choice between DTS-HD MA 5.1 Surround, and PCM 2.0 Stereo Japanese, with optional translated subtitles. The audio is strong, the surrounds put to good use conveying the film’s action, and the dialogue is clear throughout. The subtitles are timed accurately and are free of typos, and on-screen text is translated too. The disc presents its content with an animated menu screen, and the sole extra is the film’s trailer, running to 1:05 and presented in HD.

The images in this review were kindly supplied by Animatsu.

Conclusion

Body Horror isn’t a genre that I gravitate towards, and I wasn’t expecting great things from Parasyte. Let’s face it; the name is hardly conducive to the idea of entertainment. Parasyte turned out to be pretty good, certainly better than the b-movie experience that I was expecting. Although it has to be said that this isn’t a film that thrives on originality, but when it reminds you of something, it’s obviously cribbing from the best, not least Invasion of the Bodysnatchers, with its tale of parasites taking over and controlling human bodies, hiding in plain sight. Other movies and shows that it might put you in mind of are Men in Black, Terminator 2, and Tokyo Ghoul, although it’s not about copying, so much as it is about using familiar ideas and concepts to tell its own story.

When you think about the story, this so easily could have pushed the 18 rating and even fallen afoul of the censors, but Parasyte avoids that controversy by opting to keep the violence itself relatively bloodless, but saving the gore for the aftermath, or having it relatively obscured, at a distance. The special effects too opt more for the CGI plasticky comic feel than any realism, but maintain a consistency that makes their universe ‘real’ for want of a better word. Migi is an absurd CGI creation, but one that works perfectly in the context of the story and the movie.


The film begins with that ominous question, and proceeds to show the parasites’ arrival and their first victim, a man whose wife ignores his panic as a nightmare, and the next morning realises the error of her ways in a terminal manner. That should be a signpost of the horrors to come, but we then turn to Shinichi, who escapes the fatal infestation only to learn that his hand is no longer his own. There’s a fair bit of humour as Migi explores his new world, much to Shinichi’s shock, and there’s even more shock when Migi starts speaking. The two form something of a comedy double act at first, but when things start getting more serious, the relationship starts to resemble that of John Connor and the Terminator, with Shinichi trying to teach Migi human values, while some of Migi’s pragmatism rubs off on Shinichi. That cross species exchange becomes more literal later on in the film.

Far beyond the initial horror and cannibalism of the invasion, things take a more serious turn when it transpires that the other parasites are just as adaptive and intelligent as Migi, although not hampered by having to debate a human host, their motives remain purely malevolent to the human race. They move from predation to infiltration and conquest in short order, although Migi isn’t the sole parasite to be affected by contact with humans. The new chemistry teacher, Ryoko Tamiya arrives at Shinichi’s school, a controlling parasite that has inherited the host’s tendency towards experimentation, and one of her experiments takes her even closer to humanity than Migi is. She first tries to invite Migi and Shinichi to join the other parasites, and then proceeds to keep an eye on them as they display signs of unexpected evolution.


But while Tamiya’s motives may be ambiguous, her allies are less so, and they target the people that Shinichi is closest to with tragic consequences. That draws the battle lines at the end of this first film, and leaves on a tantalising cliff-hanger leading to part 2, which thankfully won’t be too long in coming.

Parasyte is an entertaining film, which certainly delivers more than I was expecting. The nineties manga has been adapted for modern audiences to good effect, the characters are well-written, and the story is engaging. But I did find that this was a film that showed its influences a little too readily, or maybe I’ve reached that point where nothing feels original anymore. Still, Parasyte the Movie has me anxious for Part 2, and it’s also had the added effect of getting me hyped for the anime also.