Review: Parasite

South Korean film Parasite has reverberated among critics and viewers

I finally saw the highly acclaimed Korean film Parasite by Bong Joon-ho with much trepidation. It was the first South Korean film to win a Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival this year.

It's not an easy film to watch and leaves you thinking about how this story is any different from how people in reality function: Are we all parasites in one way or another?

Director Bong Joon-ho winning the Palme d'Or for Parasite

The story starts off showing the Kim family in dire living conditions, in a sub-basement and trying to use the wifi from the upstairs occupants. They eke out a living folding cardboard pizza boxes, but even this simple task they can't do well and their pay is docked. How will they ever survive?

Luckily the adult son Ki-Woo (played by Choi Woo-shik) gets a recommendation from a friend to tutor the daughter of a rich and successful couple, Mr Park (Lee Sun-kyun) and his pretty wife Yeon-kyo (Cho Yeo-jeong).

Ki-Woo proves to be a good tutor and discovers the Parks' younger son needs an art tutor and recommends his sister (Park So-dam), but of course doesn't say they are related. Soon they con their way into getting the chauffeur job for their father (Song Kang-ho), but replacing the Parks' longtime housekeeper with the Kim matriarch Chang Hyde-jin) takes ingenious planning.

The Kims' ability to seamlessly slide into the Parks' lives and take advantage of this wealthy family shows not only the immense gap between the rich and the poor, but also how desperate people can be to get ahead.

The Kim family survives by folding cardboard pizza boxes

It is an amusing, but also pointed observation that turns to a shocking and sad ending. The reality is, becoming rich can only be a dream for most of us.

Bong explained to the New York Times that father Kim (Song) is a very famous actor in South Korea, while the son Choi is an up-and-coming actor. And so the scene where the son rehearses with the father about what to say to Mrs Park is amusing for South Koreans to watch -- like watching a young novice telling someone like Robert De Niro how to act.

But what also got a lot of buzz in South Korea about Parasite was how the wealth gap was portrayed in the movie. Remember in 2014, Air Korea CEO Cho Yang-ho's daughter Heather Cho Hyun-ah and vice president of the airline flew into a rage when nuts were not served to her on a plate on a flight from New York to Seoul.

The Park family holds a lavish birthday party for their child

The "nut rage" incident also echoes another one that was more tragic that year -- the Sewol ferry disaster in which 304 people drowned, of which 250 were students on a field trip. The ship was owned by the Yoo family, which investigators later found had siphoned off millions of dollars while encouraging its managers to cut corners and flout safety rules.

While Parasite does not directly refer to these incidents, they came to mind afterwards while analyzing the film, in that it mirrors reality, though with a macabre twist.

Another way to emphasize the rich-poor gap is through the excellent cinematography by Hong Kyung-pyo. Notice the Kim family is always together in the frame to emphasize not only their cramped conditions, but they are a close-knit group, while the Park family members are hardly together in the same shot, their home on the hill so large and spacious.

Bong (in grey suit) with the cast of Parasite at Cannes

Parasite is a film that makes observations about how money affects human nature, and is this the kind of world we want to live in?

Parasite (2019)
Directed by Bong Joon-ho
Screenplay by Bong Joon-ho and Han Jin-won