Film Review: PARASITE (2019): A Thrilling Film of Greed and Deception from Bong Joon-ho

Parasite Review

Parasite (2019) Film Review, a movie directed by Bong Joon-ho, and starring Kang-ho Song, Sun-kyun Lee, Yeo-jeong Jo, Woo-sik Choi, So-dam Park, Jeong-eun Lee, and Hye-jin Jang.

Since Parasite’s May 2019 release, it has earned over $266 million worldwide, making it the highest-grossing South Korean film of all time. At the 92^nd Academy Awards, the film won 4 out of the 6 Oscars it was nominated for. Taking home, the four of the nights main awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best International Feature Film. Winning Best Picture made it the first foreign language film and first South Korean film to win Best Picture in the history of the Academy awards.

The film follows a poor family, The Kims, who live in a basement like home, a home so small that they barely have room to all eat on their dinner table at the same time. We’re introduced to their way of life and struggle to make money and put food on the table. They even are shown folding pizza boxes as a family for a local pizza place, Pizza Generation, then begging to not receive a pay cut when a quarter of their work is rejected due to quality. But when a family friend stops by and brings a gift that is believed to bring wealth to families, a landscape rock collected from his grandfather, he also has a job opportunity for the adult son, Ki-Woo. This opportunity introduces the audience to a wealthy family, The Parks, who we instantly learn as Ki-Woo interviews for the job as the daughter’s tutor, have more than enough rough in their massive home. To obtain the job, Ki-Woo has his sister, Ki-Jung, forge a document that certifies him as a college graduate. The audience then not only see the talent and intelligence of Ki-Jung, but also the lengths that the family will go to for an opportunity to make money.

Ki-Woo meets the Madame of the house, Yeon Kyo, who he was told prior was simple minded. At first, Ki-Woo doesn’t understand that description on a person, but he soon does when he meets and convinces her that he’s the right man for the job. We then meet the children of the wealthy couple, Da-hye and Da-Song, y’both having trouble with certain aspects of their studies. While Ki-Woo is there to help Da-hye with her English, he learns that the young boy needs help in Art. He immediately takes the opportunity to recommend his sister for the job, however he tells the Madame of the house, Yeon Kyo, that she’s a friend of a friend and comes highly recommended. During this improvised recommendation, we learn that Ki-Woo is not only a quick-thinker and charming, but also a very good liar. All perfect qualities of a master of deception.

Ki-Jung goes for the interview and ends up convincing Yeon Kyo that she’s an excellent art therapist, granting her the position. We learn after this scene that Ki-Jung only googled ‘art therapy’ and had made up most of what she had told Yeon Kyo. Does the deception stop there? No. Especially when Ki-Jung finds a way to get the Parks’ driver fired and gets her father a job in his place, and like Ki-Woo, she withholds their real relationship. It becomes a pattern and the audience knows that the mother is next, but how? Their father isn’t as skilled in conning or quick thinking, so when the siblings work on a plan to get the housekeeper, Moon Gwang, let go, they give their father a mini-training session and script to follow prior. However, the sequence is shown from the past training session to the present. This is my favorite sequence in the film. The scenes are cross-cut from the father actually saying the lie to Yeon Kyo to him rehearsing the lie with his kids. They even show Ki-Woo telling him to be less dramatic and more focused to that he can sell the lie much better, which ends up working and they con the family into now hiring their mother.

With so much deception already, you can’t help but wonder where this story will go and how far this family will go. The more money they make though, the greedier they start to get. They’re even shown eating a pizza from Pizza Generation, which was the pizza place they were working for at the beginning of the film. This shows how far the family has come since we were first introduced to them. However, everything doesn’t stay perfect when there’s a twist in their plan that they weren’t prepared for. While the Parks leave for a family camping trip, the Kim family indulge on the luxuries of the Parks family home, even having conversations about how gullible the family is. While enjoying their night in the home, things take a turn for the worst when Moon Gwang shows up at the door asking to be let in because she forgot something in the basement.

This is where the thrilling part of the story really begins and its signified when Moon Gwang disappears into a hidden entrance which is all black, giving off mystery and a sense of the unknown. I was surprised at the dark unexpected turn the film took after when we are shown what is within that black dark hidden entrance. We learn that Moon Gwang was keeping and feeding her husband down in the hidden bunker, but before the Kims could figure out what to do with the unexpected turn of events, they realize that everyone is holding secrets and have lied to the Parks family. Moon Gwang obtains evidence that the Kims lied and threatens to reveal them to the Parks, but the blackmail is shortlived when the Kims take an opportunity to turn the tables back in their favor.

Again though, another unexpected turn comes to, the Parks call and are almost home. The place is a mess and Moon Gwang and her husband are still there. It’s a fight in two senses, a fight to who will be there when the Parks family gets home and a fight against time. This sequence was extremely entertaining to watch and as a viewer, you can’t help but feel the suspense as the clock ticks, wondering if the Kims will be able to pull this off. There’s violence and more actions that show just how far this family will go to keep their positions working for the Parks. They’re too caught up in the greed of their new lives that they don’t care about the well beings of others, even if it means hurting them physically. This is a perfect image of living in a dog eat dog world and it makes you wonder as a viewer just how far you’d go for your loved ones.

Just when you think they’re going to pull this off, the Parks family get home and the three members of the Kim family that weren’t supposed to be in the house, have yet to sneak out. We’re brought to yet another tension building sequence as Yeon Kyo reveals a story about a ghost in the house from Da-Song’s childhood, one that the audience now knows wasn’t a ghost after all but was actually Moon Gwang’s husband hidden in the bunker. The editing in this sequence is so captivating because not only does it cut from Yeon Kyo telling the story of the “ghost” and to what the other Kim family members are doing at the same time as they try to escape the house without being seen, it also cuts to a flashback of the night Da-Song saw the “ghost”. So much is happening at once and you honestly can’t look away because you don’t want to miss anything.

This film in entirety is a metaphor. If you don’t see it at first,  the writing will remind you so much throughout the film, it becomes comical. Sometimes its as obvious as a character continuously saying, “this is so metaphorical!” It’s as if the film is self-aware and it wants to remind the audience that everything you see visually on screen is much more than just what you see at first glance. As the film continues, you have no idea where the story is going to go and what it means for either family. Even though the Kim’s escape the house eventually, their uneventful night doesn’t end there. They return home and see that their home is being entirely flooded by sewage water and are forced to grab what they can before their home is completely under water. Ki-Woo’s choice of item to save? The landscape rock his family was given at the beginning of the film. He tells his father that his reasoning was being it kept following him. Since the item originally was given to them for wealth, I believe him holding onto it is him and his family getting greedy. It’s the “hot object” of the film but the audience is unaware of why yet, but his scene reminds us that it still means something.

The item makes an appearance again the following day when they’re back at the Parks residence and end up in a bloody battle with Moon Gwang’s husband, who has escaped from the bunker. Ki-Woo is beaten with “hot object” which to me, shows greed smacking him in the face. That isn’t where the violence ends though, it continues and turns into a bit of a massacre at the Parks’ place as each member tries to protect their loved ones. As the movie ends and we’re left with key players still alive, we learn that Ki-Woo’s father, who is now wanted for murder, is trapped in the bunker alone under the house and Ki-Woo vows to one day buy the house to free him.

From the title, you’re not sure what sort of film you’re about to see, but as you’re taken on this powerful journey focusing on class and social conflict, you realize it’s about people who leech off each other for different reasons. The Kim family leeched off the Parks family’s wealth and naivety and the Parks family leeched off the work the Kim family did for them because they either didn’t want to do it or didn’t know how to. In this film, you are shown the reality of social inequality and how luxuries can influence the way you carry yourself and how you treat others around you. You’re also told a story with unexpected twists and turns that continuously makes the audience question who they should be rooting for at the end of the film. The story is so riveting and enticing that the film even got a spin-off tv adaptation deal with HBO that will expand on the film’s characters and plots.

Rating: 10/10

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