Movie recommendation of the week: Bong Joon-Ho's Parasite
Title: Parasite
Year: 2018
Logline: A poor but manipulative young man enlists his family’s help to infiltrate a wealthy family in order to better their finances but his plan spirals out of control.
Genre: Dark comedy/ thriller
Duration: 2 hrs. 12 mins
Cast: Park Seo-Joon, Choi Woo Shik, Kim Ki Taek, Park So-Dam.
Made in 2019 by writer-director Bong Joon-Ho, Parasite is an interesting and deep film about the effects of capitalism. It is a story about a poor family who infiltrate the homes of a rich family under the guise of being who they are not.
Ki-woo, a guy from a poor family of four gets a gig to tutor Da Hye, the teenage daughter of the Parks. He beguiles Mrs. Park into hiring his sister to tutor Da-Hye's little brother (Da-song) on his first visit to the Park's mansion.
After plotting and executing a grand plan, Ki-woo's entire family comes into the world of the Park's and soon gets financially comfortable.
On Da-song's birthday weekend, the Parks decide to go on a family camping trip; leaving Ki-Woo's mom in charge of their home. Ki-woo and his family quickly make themselves comfortable as soon as the Parks depart, reenacting a Park family scene in the living room.
Rain begins to fall and they get super cozy but their leisure is disrupted when Chong-Sook, the formidable former housekeeper, knocks at the door.
Out of panic, Ki-woo lets in Chong-Sook who dashes straight for the basement, claiming to have forgotten something important while they trail behind her. They discover Chong-Sook's husband whom she has secreted in the Park's basement for four years.
This discovery and the Park's unexpected return from their aborted trip due to weather setback leads to a series of events that tears Ki-Woo's family apart forever.
Parasite has a lot of achievements and is known for the many records that it broke. Many film scholars and critics tagged it one of the best films of the decade it was made.
On Rotten Tomatoes, Parasite has a rating of 99% based on 468 reviews, with an average rating of 9.4/10. The critics consensus on Rotten Tomatoes reads "An urgent, brilliantly layered look at timely social themes, Parasite finds writer-director Bong Joon Ho in near-total command of his craft"
In 2019, Parasite won the Palme d'Or at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. Doing so, it became the first South Korean film to do so and with a unanimous vote.
In 2021, the Writers Guild of America ranked Parasite's screenplay the fourth greatest screenplay of the 21st century so far.
Parasite also won 4 Oscars at the 92nd Academy Awards out of 6 nominations. It won awards for Best picture, Best Director, Best International Feature Film and Best Original Screenplay.
By this, it became the first South Korean film to receive Academy Award recognition, as well as the first non-English-language film to win Best Picture.
Watch film trailer here:
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