In the first moments of the sci-fi horror series Parasyte: The Grey, a spore from who knows where falls from the sky. It bounces gently onto the ground as it lands, looking like a squishy toy you’d get from a gumball machine. Then a tentacle sprouts out, slithers toward the nearest person, jumps right into their brain — and creates a tentacled creature that endangers everyone in sight.
The series from director Yeon Sang-ho (Train to Busan, Hellbound, Jung_E) follows the aftermath when one too many extraterrestrial larvae flop onto Earth in an attempt to take over humankind. As a powerful team called the Grey work to eradicate the threat by any means necessary, one woman must coexist with the parasite that lives inside her. Based on the Japanese manga Parasyte, the Korean series stars Jeon So-nee, Koo Kyo-hwan, and Lee Jung-hyun.
Check it out at the top of this page.
Lee Jung-hyun as Choi Jun-kyung in Parasyte: The Grey
“Before [Su-in] met Heidi the parasite, she thought that people are supposed to be lonely… She didn’t really care much about living or surviving,” So-nee told Netflix about playing Su-in. “But after she coexists with parasites… she thinks about how it’s good to have people around her, and how good it is to live and survive. That transition was very entertaining and meaningful.”
The doctors say Su-in (Jeon), who’s in the hospital, seems fine after nearly dying in a car accident — but something is a bit off. And she’s not alone. All over the world, humans have become infected by unidentified parasites that’ve taken over their brains. The parasites have the ability to control humans and make them do things, make them kill. In response, the government creates an aggressive anti-parasite task force — led by the coldhearted Choi Jun-kyung (Lee Jung-hyun) — to annihilate every last one.
Most infected humans have ceased to remain human at all — except Su-in. She has some sort of… symbiosis with the creature that lives inside of her. It even speaks to her. In fact, the parasite saved Su-in’s life after she was hit by a car. And Su-in saved it. Without a host, the organism would’ve died. So how did Su-in become the only one who’s been able to maintain some of her humanity while still being half mutant? And how will she thwart Team Grey in order to survive?
“To me, [the manga] Parasyte is about coexistence,” Yeon told Netflix. “So I wanted Parasyte: The Grey to echo this theme. I questioned whether people could peacefully coexist with other organisms or mutants unlike themselves.”
Kim In-kwon as Kang Won-seock and Kwon Hae-hyo as Kim Chul-min in Parasyte: The Grey
Team Grey, or the Grey, is the governmental task force assigned to eliminate all the parasites. They’re lead by tough-as-nails police officer Jun-kyung.
“She’s a professor at the police academy and a very well-known profiler,” actor Jung-hyun, who plays Jun-kyung, told Netflix. “After she loses her husband to the parasites, she goes through a complete change. Since then, she almost feels like killing off the parasites is a game to her.”
But why’s it called grey? Yeon told Netflix that the color references the competing natures of the team’s special agents — those who reveal their identity, and those who conceal themselves, working in the shadows. “Gray could mean the mixture of these two different kinds of agents,” Yeon said. “That’s why we named the task force the Grey.”
The color also signifies the duality of coexistence. “The original work talks about the theme of coexistence, and we wanted to delve into that [idea of] coexistence between people, human beings, and parasites,” Yeon continued. “And the lead character, Su-in, is also in the gray area between the human world and the parasite world.”
Yes. Parasyte: The Grey is based on the manga Parasyte by Japanese author Hitoshi Iwaaki. While the story’s original to the series, it’s set in the same universe as the manga.
“This new story taking place in a different location will lead us into a world beyond my imagination,” Iwaaki told Netflix.
“In my 20s, [the manga] Parasyte was a staple for those of us who were passionate about manga and animation,” the series’ director, Yeon, said. “This is my favorite, favorite work that I’ve been fanboying all my life. [Parasyte: The Grey] is the culmination of my fanboying.”
Shinichi Izumi, the lead character of Iwaaki’s manga series Parasyte, is a teenager from Japan who’s infected by a parasite named Migi that takes over his right hand — and with whom he has to coexist.
Jeon So-nee as Jeong Su-in, aka Heidi, in Parasyte: The Grey
The series is set in a South Korean city called Namil. This differs from the manga, which takes place in Fukuyama, Hiroshima, Japan.
It’s a sci-fi horror series — but Yeon classifies it more specifically. “In terms of genre, we call it body snatcher genre,” he told Netflix. “Body snatcher basically means that these beings that we know to be very ordinary turn out to be something completely different… [Parasyte: The Grey] really deals with that intense horror of finding that out.”
In the series, the parasitic creatures shape-shift into tentacle-faced monsters. “The face literally opens,” Yeon said. “I've done quite a number of creature works or monster genres, but in the past, those creatures within a particular project tend to have a uniform look. This time around, each of them [is] very different.”
There’s been no official announcement yet regarding a second season of the series.
Watch the below video to learn more about the making of the sci-fi series.
