Parasite Eve (1997)

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

good back-story, and good acting

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

The first half of this film is perfectly executed. It really takes a toll on you emotionally because you really get a chance to feel for toshiaki and all of the things he's going through.In the second half of the film (when the "horror" portion starts) things take an odd twist. I have really mixed feelings about this half because in a way it didn't do the first half justice but at the same time it was an essential piece in bringing the two halves together.I also don't understand why some people are saying the film was slow? The first hour of the film was CRUCIAL in developing the plot and characters for the second half.All in all I really liked it, if you can appreciate the romance and the weird plot this movie has to offer I'm sure you'll enjoy it as much as I did.

I'm a fan of book to movie releases. Regardless of whether I've read the book or not, I enjoy spotting the differences and considering how well the movie conveys the gist of the plot and how the actors portray the characters. This time round however, I was sorely disappointed.My first contact with the Parasite Eve series was during the Playstation game's release in the 90s. Enthralled by the bioscience driven story, with the chill of the idea that your own body might rebel against you, I began looking up the original novel that started it all. At the time, the book remained untranslated, but I managed to find a graphic novel version translated to Chinese at the local comic shop. The plot, essentially a prequel to the game, completely blew me away. It explained so much of the game's background in a style of brutal science fiction horror.This movie, an adaptation of the novel, abandons most of that. While I can forgive the fact that the special effects aren't exactly 'up to standard' given that it is a film from the 90s, I cannot forgive the utter mangling of the plot and the bad acting. I honestly don't understand how they managed or decided to drag the film out to two hours long while failing to convey even half of the original story.Instead of the evenly paced bioscience thriller where the rush to stop Mitochondria Eve actually *fails* and her scheme is only foiled by a miscalculation on her own part, a frightening salvation of mankind only by a single chromosome; the plot is inexplicably dissolved into a two hour long, woodenly acted angst-fest of a man who forgot his wedding anniversary and greatly regrets not spending time with his wife. The story of the mitochondria rebelling seems to take second place to this, especially in the anti-climatic 'grand finale' where he somehow stops the independently acting Mitochondria from carrying out their plot because for some reason, in the process of making their host fall in love with him, they have come to develop feelings for him too (or imply that 'Kiyomi', his wife, is still 'in there', which is even cheesier and more unbelievable). To top it off, the movie even fails to provide the aftermath of what happens to the other characters, leaving behind plot holes aplenty.All in all, if you really want to something that stays true and keeps to the spirit of Parasite Eve, just order the book off Amazon, they actually have it translated now.

the only reason that i give this movie a 2 rather than a 1 is because it is so amazingly terrible that it carries comedic value along with it. the story is so absurd, and i mean absurd in a bad way, that the very mention of it makes me, and anyone else who knows about it, explode into a pitying laughter for whoever decided to undertake this masterpiece of failure. i mean really, think about it, a person's mitochondria??? rising up in rebellion???? that belongs in a comedy or a comic book, not a serious movie. they took it seriously like there was a scientific possibility that this could happen. that approach may work for something that actually sounds cool, but this strayed away from that possibility the moment the writer put his fingers to the keyboard. again i say that the only purpose that this movie serves is to laugh hysterically at; and i meant that in the worst possibly way

I really enjoyed this film. I'm a BIG fan of the game and it was interesting to see how they blended elements of the original story into the storyline of the SquareSoft title.It is an interesting concept... and perhaps one that could have been explored a little move fully. The ideas that the film presents are original, and displayed in a pretty original way. I chalk most of my "huh?" factor (mostly in relation to character motivation) to the difference in cultures.Some of the effects are pretty groovy, too! It's a little slow moving at first, but it does start to pay off towards the end. Hang in there.And then go and play the game!