'Parasite' earns three Golden Globe nominations

Director Bong Joon-ho accepts the Hollywood Filmmaker Award for "Parasite" at the 2019 Hollywood Film Awards in Beverly Hills, California in this November file photo. He has been nominated in three sections for the upcoming Golden Globe Awards. Reuters-Yonhap

By Lee Gyu-lee

Director Bong Joon-ho's satirical thriller “Parasite” earned three Golden Globe nominations, becoming the first Korean film to be nominated for the awards.

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the organizer of the Golden Globes, released the list of nominees for its 2020 awards, Monday, and announced “Parasite” had been nominated for “Best Foreign Language Film,” “Best Director,” and “Best Screenplay.”

The awards honor achievements in film and television and the ceremony is often considered an unofficial kickoff to the awards season, with the Oscars following.

The nominations for the upcoming acclaimed awards have created high anticipation after the film made a mark at the North America box office, amid superhero flicks and streaming-giant Netflix's films diverting people away from traditional theaters.

The director's longtime distribution partner Tom Quinn ― the CEO of independent distribution company Neon ― won the film's distribution rights in North America in October last year.

Shortly after the film opened in only three U.S. theaters this October, it shot to popularity and expanded showings to over 600 theaters. “Parasite” has become the highest-grossing international film in the U.S. this year, with $19.3 million as of Tuesday.

Words of praise for the tale of two economically polarized families ― the extreme rich and poor ― and the director have poured in as the movie has continued to make a buzz worldwide.

A. O. Scott, the chief film critic for The New York Times, picked the film as “the movie of the year,” calling it “Bong Joon-ho's Dystopia.” He said in his article, “What makes Parasite the movie of the year ― what might make Bong the filmmaker of the century ― is the way it succeeds in being at once fantastical and true to life, intensely metaphorical and devastatingly concrete.”

Since May, when the film won the Palme d'Or, the highest honor at the Cannes Film Festival, it has been invited to 52 international film festivals and earned over 30 awards, including the Sydney Film Prize at the Sydney Film Festival and Best Foreign Language Film at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards.

“Parasite” has premiered in 37 countries, grossing over $118 million at the worldwide box office as of Tuesday. It is set to be released in a few more countries before the beginning of next year, including Sweden, Mexico, the U.K., and Japan.

For the Golden Globe Awards, the director will compete for the best director prize with Quentin Tarantino (“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood“), Todd Phillips (“Joker”), Sam Mendes (“1917”), and Martin Scorsese (“The Irishman”).

The film will vie for “Best Screenplay” with three Netflix films ― Noah Baumbach's “Marriage Story,” Fernando Meirelles's “The Two Popes,” and Martin Scorsese's “The Irishman” ― and Tarantino's “Once Upon A Time in Hollywood.”

In the “Best Foreign Language Film” section, the film is nominated along with director Lulu Wang's “The Farewell,” Ladj Ly's “Les Miserables,” Pedro Almodovar's “Pain and Glory,” and Celine Sciamma's “Portrait of a Lady on Fire.”

The Golden Globes awards ceremony will be held Jan. 6.