Parasite - A Biting Social Satire Worth Seeing

By Robert Thomas

For many foreign film directors there is only one chance to hit it big on the silver screen and then after the one hit wonder they fade into obscurity.

The same can not be said for South Korean director Bong Joon-ho. Joon-ho has come out with two South Korean box office smashers with 2006 monster movie The Host and then the sci-fi action film Snowpiercer in 2016.

After these two film successes there was plenty of pressure on Joon-ho to deliver even better and he has done just that in Parasite.

Parasite is by far Joon-ho's most critically acclaimed film where it won the coveted Palme d'Or at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival.

Parasite has already been selected as entrant in the category of Best International Feature Film at the 92nd Academy Awards In February 2020.

I was fortunate enough to be in the audience at the film's Ukrainian red carpet premiere at the 2019 Odesa International Film Festival (OIFF) where it was well received by the audience.

The film was not dubbed into Ukrainian or English but rather sub-titles ram on the bottom of the screen.

The main reason I feel it failed to capture an award at Odessa is due to the high quality local and regional competition it faced and perhaps audiences voting for their more local films.

In Ukraine the film went right from the OIFF to the general public.

Parasite is a story about a symbiotic relationship as well as a class struggle wrapped up in a dark drama often punctuated with humour, romance and intrigue. It is a masterful creation which takes the audience seamlessly through the emotions.

The premise of Parasite is a down on their luck South Korean family who have no jobs and are seemingly list in a hopeless life full of destitution and despair.

That is until one day opportunity comes knocking on the door and the family grabs the opportunity to almost seemingly get their lives back together or at least the Wi-Fi and their connection to the outside world turned back on.

The lead actor and ring leader of the clan is not the father Kim Ki-taek played by veteran actor Song Kang-ho but rather the son Ki-woo played by relative newcomer Choi Woo-shik.

Sometimes you go to great lengths to get Wi-Fi - scene from Parasite

Ki-woo is approached by a friend Min-hyuk played by Lee Sun Gyun who brings a rock, a sign of strength and coming prosperity, along with a proposition.

The proposition is for Ki-woo to tutor a female student Min-Hyuk has been tutoring English to. Min-hyuk has chosen Ki-woo not for his credentials, as he has none, but rather he believes he can trust the down on his luck Ki-woo. Ki-woo is trustworthy as he is poor and unmotivated.

Min-Hyuk is going to college abroad and has his eyes set on his underage pupil Da-Hye played by Jung Ji-So. Min-Hyuk initiates the deception by telling Ki-woo he will vouch for him and phony credentials.

Little does Min-Hyuk expect this first symbiotic relationship of his feeding off of Ki-woo's poverty and lack of motivation to hold onto a beautiful underage girl from a wealthy family will lead into a tangled web of lies.

A web of lies which quickly stretches outwards as new English tutor Ki-woo leaches onto the opportunity before him as he makes Da-Hye's weak character and minded mother Yeon-Kyo played by Cho Yeo-Jong reliant upon him.

Cho Yeo-Jong is easily led and the parasitic hunter Ki-woo quickly devises a plan to have his sister Ki-Jung, played by an already established up and coming actor Park So-Dam, partake on the financial feast as an art psychologist.

Quickly establishing themselves the siblings quickly devise a plan to lead Cho Yeo-Jong and her husband Mr Park, played by acting veteran Lee Sun-Kyun, totally reliant to their servitude. The poor it seems have upper hand on the Park family.

The Park family is amongst the nouveau rich in Korean society as Mr Park is the president and the brains behind a tech start-up.

There are definite lines as Mr Park seemingly tests his new driver Ki-Taek, played by another Korean acting veteran Song Kang-Ho, who unbeknownst to Mr Park is in reality Ki-woo and Ki-Jung's father.

Despite the tests the now trio debris a diabolical plan to dispose of the maid Moon-Gwang played by another stellar South Korean acting veteran Lee Jung-Eun.

With the clan seemingly in charge of both families lives there are warnings though about the separation between the two when Mr Park remarks his new driver almost steps across some fine line between confidant and simple advisor in minor affairs to the bounds of not only the personal space of Mr Park and his family.

Sometimes a confidence can lead to bad things - scene from Parasite

Bounds which it easy to tell are social and economic. Both families are reliant it seems on one another for their ultimate survival with each dominant within their own place in society.

There is an eerie line between the Parks where Mr Park remarks now all the servants smell the same. For an instant the audience seems led to believe the secret will soon be discovered but the suspense quickly drops.

It is this rolling suspense of being caught wrapped up with comedy and darkness which makes Parasite such a successful film. It is easy to see where Joon-Jo has learnt and adapted from other genres to masterfully interject them into this film.

The final replacement of Moon-Gwang with Choong-Sok, played by yet another veteran South Korean actor Jane Hiy-Yin, as cook and maid though seems like the ultimate victory but the family’s arrogance quickly unravels the plan.

Moon-Gwang, who has been not only the housekeeper for the Parks but the previous owners, returns and unleashes her own secret of slowly drawing blood from the Park family.

It is a secret which quickly plunges the entire plan in chaos as everything quickly unravels and the side webs of deceit and reliance are almost literally washed away.

How this all happens is something I will leave future audiences to discover. But I will say the film end brilliantly.

Parasite as a film has to be technically one of the best headed to the Academy Awards this February. Directed Joon-ho was seemingly given the best cast to fit the roles and he brilliantly used the tools before him to create his masterpiece.

So far this year I have watched some very good foreign films out there and Parasite is one of the best. I would not be surprised it it took home an Oscar.

Parasite will premiere in North America on October 11th.