Parasite
PARASITE (15)
D: Boon Jong-Ho
CJ Entertainment/Barunson E&A (Kwak Sin-Ae, Moon Yang-Kwon, Bong Yok-Cho & Jang Young-Hwan)
South Korea 🇰🇷 2019
132 mins
Thriller/Drama/Comedy
W: Bong Joon-Ho & Han Jin-Won
DP: Hong Kyong-Pyo
Ed: Yang Jin-Mo
Mus: Jung Jae-Il
PD: Lee Ha-Jun
Song Kang-Ho (Kim Ki-Taek), Choi Woo-Shik (Kim Ki-Woo), Park So-Dam (Kim Ki-Jeong), Jang Hye-Jin (Kim Chung-Sook), Lee Sun-Kyun (Park Dong-Ik), Cho Yeo-Jeong (Choi Yeon-Gyo), Jung Ji-So (Park Da-Hye)
***SPOILER WARNING***
South Korea's Parasite has made history for becoming the first film not in the English language to win the Best Picture Oscar, which is quite a big deal. It's also an accolade which I have to admit is quite rightfully earned.
Bong Joon-Ho's black comedy looks at the inequality between two families on opposite sides of the spectrum of wealth, the poor, unemployed family all crammed into a tiny basement apartment whilst a rich family live in a luxurious modern mansion in the upper part of the same city.Â
Via fraud and duplicity, the members of poorer family find themselves under the employment of their richer counterparts, either as tutors or domestic help, but the plot twists halfway through this development when things are not as they seemed.
The disparity between the two families could be summed up with one scene later on in the film, where the rich bless a night of heavy rain for clearing the sky whilst the poor family have lost everything because of the torrential downpour.Â
It's a film which is more rewarding the less you know about it, and Boon Jong Ho and his marketing team deserve a lot of credit for the way the trailer has been shaped, just giving a taste of the story without giving any of the secrets away.
Armed with a great screenplay and believable characters, the plot unfolds in a realistic way which doesn't feel contrived or artificial, leading to a gripping finale that will leave you on the edge of your seat. It's seriously that good, Hitchcock in his element would surely have been an admirer of the craft, tension and execution. Â
Even the title is a work of genius, since it's ambiguous who the Parasite is in the context of the story. Is it the poor feeding off the rich, or vice versa?? It's completely subjective.
This isn't just one of the best foreign films or Korean films ever made, it's one of the best films ever made. Period. An absolute masterpiece of cinema.
10/10
