Parasyte: The Grey

Did You Know?

• Climax Studio and Wow Point managed the production.
• Koo Kyo-hwan and Jeon So-nee were officially confirmed as the main characters on August 24, 2022.

Plot

A rain of alien parasites crashes to Earth, each one a small, wormlike creature that can burrow into a human host, killing the person and taking over their body. Once inside, the parasite can reshape its host's head into any form, making them unpredictable and deadly. To fight this hidden invasion, a special police unit called "The Grey" is formed under the command of Choi Jun-kyung. Their mission is to stop the parasites and keep all evidence of the attacks out of the news and off social media. Jun-kyung has a personal stake in the fight: her own husband was one of the first infected. She now keeps him alive, muzzled and captive, using him as a hunting dog. Because parasites can sense each other, he alerts the team whenever one is nearby.

Jeong Su-in lives a quiet, unremarkable life as a supermarket cashier. That changes when a drunk customer stabs her after her shift. She wakes up in the hospital to find her attacker dead. Police officer Kim Chul-min, who once rescued Su-in from her abusive father when she was a child, checks on her. Unbeknownst to her, Su-in has become a parasite. One tried to take over her brain while she was unconscious, but it failed to gain full control. Instead, the parasite was forced to heal Su-in's stab wound, and now it lives in her subconscious. It can only emerge from one side of her head to protect her when she is in danger. Two other parasites corner Su-in to test if she is one of them. A small-time thug named Seol Kang-woo witnesses this. His older sister is a parasite, and his younger sister is missing. The parasite inside Su-in, which Kang-woo nicknames Heidi after Jekyll and Hyde, asks him to tell Su-in about her existence.

Cast and characters

Jeong Su-in, played by Jeon So-nee, is a young woman carrying a traumatic past. After sustaining stab wounds, a parasite fails to take over her brain, leading to an unusual coexistence with it—a condition unlike that of other infected hosts. Koo Kyo-hwan appears as Seol Kang-woo, a low-level gangster who hunts parasites while searching for his missing younger sister, later joining forces with Su-in once he learns about her situation. Lee Jung-hyun portrays Choi Jun-kyung, the head of the anti-parasite task force called "Grey Team." The cast also includes Kwon Hae-hyo as senior detective Kim Chul-min, Kim In-kwon as his junior Kang Won-seok, Yoon Hyun-gil as Kang-woo's infected elder sister Seol Kyung-hee, Lee Hyun-kyun as the parasite leader Pastor Kwon Hyuk-joo, Moon Ju-yeon as the missing Seol Jin-hee, Jeon Su-ji as Su-in's mother, and Masaki Suda as Shinichi Izumi from the original manga and anime.

Reception

Critics have offered mixed but often enthusiastic takes on Parasyte: The Grey. Craig Mathieson of The Age noted the series works best as a horror story, focusing on possessed humans who shift between monstrous and normal forms while authorities try to stop the invasion. Jonathan Wilson of Ready Steady Cut gave it 3 out of 5 stars, arguing that in a media landscape full of zombies and monsters, a better show could have been made from the same material, and that while the action and visuals carry much of the weight, the premise and themes feel underexplored. Kate Sánchez of But Why Tho? gave it 9.5 out of 10, calling it superb as horror, exciting as sci-fi, and most importantly a showstopper as an adaptation. Joel Keller of Decider said the action is enough to hold interest, but the story of Su-in’s mutant existence is what keeps viewers watching. Pramit Chatterjee of Digital Mafia Talkies gave it a perfect 5 out of 5, calling it a great extension of Hitoshi Iwaaki’s manga and a relevant piece of art that comments on modern times. Dustin Rowles of Pajiba described it as a gloriously schlocky, B-movie escape from reality, with director Yeon Sang-ho delivering six episodes of gory creature designs and fight scenes that make you wince and cheer. Steven Nguyen Scaife of IGN said the show offers weighty action and smart departures that complement a fearsome live-action portrayal of the famous monsters, though the characterization never reaches the heights of the original. Carla Monfort of Espinof called it an entertaining and interesting science fiction thriller.