Par­a­site is now the UK’s high­est-gross­ing for­eign-lan­guage film ever

Per­haps you assumed that with the pass­ing of Oscar night and the offi­cial con­clu­sion of awards sea­son, the steady stream of news items about the world-span­ning cul­tur­al dom­i­na­tion of Bong Joon-ho​’s crowd-pleas­ing Par­a­site would ebb. Think again!

Over this past week­end, the awards-lav­ished Kore­an thriller added yet anoth­er feath­er to its cap by claim­ing the dis­tinc­tion of the UK’s high­est-gross­ing film of all time not in the Eng­lish lan­guage. Accord­ing to Dead­line, its gross­es now total £11,458,707, edg­ing out the for­mer title-hold­er Pas­sion of the Christ and its £11,080,000 take. (Mel Gib­son, glob­al filmmaker!)

The response of the pub­lic to this news has pro­vid­ed a hint as to how a Cannes vic­tor could so pro­long its phe­nom­e­non; the cel­e­bra­to­ry tweet from Cur­zon Arti­fi­cial Eye speaks to the sub­tle way in which the crit­i­cal and finan­cial suc­cess of this film became a col­lec­tive project for its far-reach­ing fan­dom. Attain­ing block­buster sta­tus was a team effort for the many view­ers who pur­chased return tick­ets for a sec­ond, third, or fourth view­ing as well as the the­aters that con­tin­ue to run it.

If noth­ing else, it’s heart­en­ing to see such a hand­some mon­e­tary return to a film that tru­ly deserves its every coin, a rare occur­rence for non-fran­chise releas­es informed by an auteur’s vision. I’m remind­ed of the roar­ing roll­out for Mad Max: Fury Road and the feel­ing that any­thing is pos­si­ble – that high­ly indi­vid­u­al­is­tic films can be financed and made at a tremen­dous prof­it for a pub­lic pre­pared to appre­ci­ate all they have to offer.

We most like­ly haven’t seen the last of Par­a­site as a box-office force to be reck­oned with. if dis­trib­u­tors have any sense, they’ll make this one a sta­ple of reper­to­ry screen­ings for years to come, where it could con­tin­ue to play to sold-out hous­es aware that it has a spe­cial wow fac­tor when expe­ri­enced in a prop­er the­atri­cal set­ting. The col­lec­tive rum­blings of ​“Jes­si­ca, only child, Illi­nois, Chica­go” will sound through­out the halls of history.