There’s no way around it, the Oscar winning ‘Parasite’ was the film of 2019 that had audiences shook. To be more specific, it was me, I was shook. It’s a little late, and pretty much everyone has written about the movie, but it wanted to throw in my two cents.
This review is spoiler free (which was very hard).
‘Parasite’ was directed and co-written by Bong Joon-ho. He was the brilliant mind behind ‘Snowpiercer’ as well, and if you haven’t seen that movie, please do. Han Jin-won helped write the script and he also worked on the second season of ‘Sense8’ and I was a little bit obsessed with that show for a while. I mean Doona Bae is just fantastic in that series so I literally had no choice.
The Family
The movie itself is about two families, the poor Kim family and the rich Park family.
From left to right you have Ki-woo (played by Choi Woo-shik), Ki-taek (played by Song Kang-ho), Chung-sook (played by Jang Hye-jin) and Ki-jung (played by Park Da-song). They live in a semi-basement and are struggling to get by. They’re hustlers, taking small jobs here and there but never anything secure or for very long.
This is the Park family. Up top we have the dad, Dong-ik (played by Lee Sun-kyun) standing next to his daughter Da-hye (played by Jung Ji-so). Then we have the mom, Yeon-gyo (played by Cho Yeo-jeong) and the son Da-song (played by Jung Hyeon-jun).
When I first watched the film ‘Parasite’ I thought it was interesting that the family structure is so similar. Mother, father, daughter, son. The only major difference is the capital. Imagine if the Kim family had started off with money and the Park family had been poor, would the same story have taken place?
The Kims slowly start infiltrating the Park family’s lives. It starts off with Ki-woo taking a job as an English tutor. Ki-woo is portrayed by Choi Woo-shik, just an adorable bean. He’s been in a lot of movies and K-dramas and he was even in two music videos by DAY6. He was amazing as Ki-woo.
Morals and architecture
The invisible lines of morality are broken pretty soon with the ‘peach’ montage. The housekeeper, played by Lee Jung-eun, a brilliant actress who’s also in ‘Strangers From Hell’, is allergic to peaches. Since the Kim family wants their mother to be the new housekeeper they set up a whole plot to get her fired. There’s a really cool video about this moment in the film by Nerdwriter.
There’s also a super interesting video about the architecture of the houses of both the Kims and the Parks. Quick warning, there are major spoilers in the video, so only watch it if you’ve seen the film or if you don’t mind spoilers. The house itself is very important in the way the story is told. Also I really have house envy. It is beautiful!
‘Parasite’ is so rich with meaning in every little nook, and every little look, that everyone who watches it can have a different opinion.
The (slightly) annoying part is that I want to rave and write a lot more, but I can’t do that without giving away the plot. And you kind of need to be surprised by what happens in ‘Parasite’ to get the full emotional consequences.
Even if you don’t really watch movies, please watch it. I loved every minute of it, despite being thoroughly frustrated by the characters sometimes. But that just shows how much I was sucked into the story. It was great.
There’s something for every type of audience. There’s smart satire, there’s humor, there’s a con, there are even scary moments, dramatic moments. The film ‘Parasite’ is absolutely brilliant.
If you like Lee Sun-kyun’s acting, go check out our review about ‘My Mister’.
