NEON and the Criterion Collection have announced today that Criterion will issue special editions of two Bong Joon-ho masterpieces, the four-time Academy Award-winning Parasite and the breathtaking crime drama Memories of Murder.
Parasite just made history as the first foreign language film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, and the first Korean film to win Best Director, Best International Film, and Best Original Screenplay. Parasite was also Nominated for Best Production Design and Best Editing, and previously won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film and Palme d'Or at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival.
Memories of Murder was released in 2003 and marked the first of Bong Joon-ho and Song Kang-ho's collaborations, and has gone on to be considered one of the most thrilling and haunting crime dramas released this century. NEON recently acquired the rights to the film and will be re-releasing the film in theaters before its home video release from Criterion.
Parasite is set amidst the two families, the Parks, the picture of aspirational wealth, and the Kims, rich in street smarts but not much else. Be it chance or fate, these two houses are brought together and the Kims sense a golden opportunity. Masterminded by college-aged Ki-woo, the Kim children expediently install themselves as tutor and art therapist, to the Parks. Soon, a symbiotic relationship forms between the two families. The Kims provide "indispensable" luxury services while the Parks obliviously bankroll their entire household. When a parasitic interloper threatens the Kims’ newfound comfort, a savage, underhanded battle for dominance breaks out, threatening to destroy the fragile ecosystem between the Kims and the Parks.
Memories of Murder is set in a small Korean province in 1986, and follows three detectives who struggle with the case of multiple young women being found raped and murdered by an unknown culprit.
There's no news on release dates, but we'll be sure to keep you posted when they're announced.
