Parasite

Garlanded with awards and praise, this is perhaps the most anticipated foreign language films to receive a wide-release. It’s a South Korean movie which is tense and ultimately quite violent, as well as having a beautiful visual style and a message about poverty and the prejudice against those without money who work for those with plenty. It’s the story of a family that eke out a meagre living on the streets of Seoul—at one point the job is folding pizza boxes. Mother and father Chung-sook and Ki-taek, and their young adult offspring, son Ki-woo and daughter Ki-jung eventually get an opportunity to occupy the house as they get jobs as unrelated labourers. When the Park family are out, the Kims can make use of the house. However that doesn’t last.

What makes the film good is the wit. This is a funny film about people with nothing, and when they get to sneak into the house during the Park family’s camping trip the audacity of their temporary social bump-up is the kind of fun that’s like pulling a fast one on parents and teachers and taking the day off school. The Kims are fun and close, and the Parks are poised and self-regarding. There’s an extended scene featuring one of the kids wanting to sleep in a Teepee in the garden, whilst the parents sleep on the couch to watch over her but end up getting up to a bit more than sleeping as there are people hiding in the darkness.

As with all stories, though, there has to be a payoff. The certificate announces “strong bloody violence” beside the 15, and Boon Joon Ho delivers plenty of tension amid a flood scene, and then the payoff which is a knife assault on a carefully orchestrated garden party. The division between the happy but poor and the rich who even sneer at the way poverty smells whilst in the presence of the very person they’re talking about—it is all leading towards the explosion of vindictive violence that ends the film. This isn’t especially tasteless, unnecessary violence although it does seem to make cinema viewers laugh.


Parasite is a fun film that’s explosively popular at the moment, and it is sharply written and for the most part a lot of fun. It’s very well acted and stylishly photographed with some great visual images and some wonderful building of tension.

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