Bong Joon-Ho, film director and screenwriter of some of the highest grossing films in South Korea, such as “The Host” and “Snowpiercer,” has again created an award-winning masterpiece. “Parasite” is a dark-comedy-thriller starring Song Kang-ho, Lee Sun-kyun, Cho Yeo-jeong, Choi Woo-shik and Park So-dam. The film follows the Kim family who become employed by a wealthy household while masquerading as skilled professional workers.
Right from the beginning of the movie, I knew I was in for a treat. The almost instantaneous humor meshed in with the reality of living in a low-income family reeled me in. However, from seeing trailers of this movie, I knew there were darker things coming my way later on.
After being offered a position from his friend, high school student Ki-woo, played by Choi Woo-shik, poses as a university student that also works as an English tutor for the daughter of the wealthy family, the Park family. As Ki-woo spends more time around the family, he begins to see opportunities for positions that his own family members could fulfill. His family begins to become employed as well, starting with his sister, Ki-Jeong.
Ki-Jeong, played by Park So-dam, poses as an art therapist who has studied abroad in the United States. Now both in the scheme, Ki-woo and Ki-jeong begin to work together to integrate the rest of their family into the Park’s household, while all of them pretend to be unrelated.
Using dirty tricks such as framing the chauffer for having sex in the family car and accusing the family nanny of having tuberculosis, they successfully replace those individuals with their father and mother. The family then makes themselves at home in the Park’s house while they are away camping, and things seem to finally be going their way.
However, things take a turn for the worse when the nanny revisits the home and sees the family together. And it only gets deadlier from there.
Bong Joon-Ho did not fail to entertain me with this film. The twists and turns within the plot caught me off guard in ways I would’ve never expected. The suspenseful tone of each scene kept me locked in with anticipation while also shielding my eyes in expectation for the worst. The very definition of the title, “Parasite,” can be taken literally or metaphorically. Was the parasite the Kim family trying to integrate themselves into the Park family, or was it the desperate thirst for money and luxury that overshadowed their morals?
All in all, this film was a masterpiece. The film’s brilliance was reflected well through its numerous awards, the most notable being the Palme d’Or at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. The film is also nominated for several Oscars, including the coveted “Best Picture” award. The film’s success serves as a reminder of the importance in celebrating foreign films in our movie industry.