'Parasite' Wins 4 Academy Awards, Chinese and Japanese Netizens Say "Truly Envious"

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Hyunwoo Lee] The film Parasite won four Academy Awards, becoming the first foreign-language film to receive the Best Picture award at the Oscars, prompting netizens in China and Japan to express both congratulations and envy. Alongside this, there are also criticisms pointing out issues within their own domestic film industries, hoping for progress.

On the 10th, many users on Chinese social media platform Weibo posted messages praising the film Parasite and director Bong Joon-ho, saying "truly amazing." They highly evaluated Parasite and Korean cinema, even quoting Bong’s acceptance speech: "The most personal is the most creative." At the same time, many Chinese netizens criticized chronic problems in Chinese cinema such as censorship. One Weibo user wrote, "Korean films are truly outstanding. Domestic films only make me sigh." Another Chinese netizen criticized, "Chinese films rely solely on patriotism and making money." There were also posts criticizing the excessive censorship by the Chinese government, saying, "There are too many restrictions on film and drama subjects in our country."

[Image source=Yahoo Japan/yahoo.co.jp]

Japanese netizens also generally expressed envy and called for self-reflection within the Japanese film industry. On Yahoo Japan, the country’s largest portal site, news of Parasite’s win ranked first in real-time search terms throughout the morning. One Japanese netizen wrote, "I thought Korea would win someday. I hope Japan keeps trying without losing." Another netizen pointed out, "Over the past 10 years, the gap between Japanese and Korean films has widened significantly. Unfortunately, Japanese films today do not have the capability to win the Academy Award for Best Picture."

Despite recent anti-Korean sentiments, there is a mood of recognition for the Best Picture win. The best comment on Yahoo Japan, which received 6,079 recommendations, stated, "The attitude that anything related to Korea should be criticized only narrows one’s perspective. Good is good. It was truly a good work." In a real-time online poll on Yahoo Japan titled "Do you accept Parasite’s Academy Award for Best Picture?" out of 1,849 votes so far, 76% (1,405 votes) responded that they accept it, while 24% (444 votes) said they do not.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.