ParasiteIs it a crime to deceive and exploit those who look upon you as inferior? Parasite is a black comedy and social satire about two families in South Korea--the Kims and the Parks. The Kim family resides in a semi-basement apartment in the slums of the city, and spends their time hustling and committing petty crimes to get by. The Parks are obnoxiously wealthy nouveau riche, disconnected from the realities of life for everyday people. Kim Ki-woo (Choi Woo-shik) fools the gullible Park matriarch, Yeon-gyo (Cho Yeo-jeong), into believing that he is a college student so that he can get a sweet gig tutoring her daughter, Da-hye (Jung Ji-so), in English. Subsequently, he introduces the rest of his family as assorted "professionals", resulting in all of them infiltrating the Parks' designer home in a sophisticated con to leech off of their bountiful wealth.
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Parasite begins by establishing that the Kim family is tight-knit and appears altogether supportive of one another, even if their preferred means of making a buck is often through spurious means. They are introduced as they are working together to sloppily put together a bunch of pizza boxes for a low-level pizza restaurant and trying to steal wi-fi; they even manage to spin a subpar output of boxes into a potential job interview for Ki-woo. In spite of their destitute lifestyle, they have a seemingly endless verve to find a mark and exploit it. Ki-woo's friend, Min-hyuk (Park Seo-joon), is the one who clues him in on the Park family, and to exploit the "simple" Yeon-gyo as he did. Ki-woo's sister, Ki-jung (Park So-dam), forges the documents Ki-woo needs to show that he is a student, but its Min's recommendation that really impresses Yeon-gyo, who puts an undue amount of trust in those who pander to her vapid impulses. And Yeon-gyo is once again tricked when Ki-woo causally suggests that her artistic son, Da-song (Jung Hyeon-jun), might benefit from the services of his "friend's cousin" (Ki-jung), who "happens to be an art therapist". Yeon-gyo suddenly finds herself with two professionals teaching her children--which works for her, because she's woefully incompetent at parenting, not to mention everything else. After Ki-jung gives her performance, she lays a "trap" for the inquisitive family valet, Yoon (Park Geun-rok), who suspects that she isn't all that she claims to be. Her deception succeeds in discrediting Yoon in the eyes of Yeon-gyo's arrogant husband, Dong-ik (Lee Sun-kyun), who in turn gets a suggestion (by Ki-jung) to hire a "veteran driver" as a replacement. The man she recommends is actually her father, Ki-taek (Song Kang-ho), and the insipid tech entrepreneur hires "Mr. Kim" because he manages to stroke his ego. The only hurdle in their total domination of the Park household is the housekeeper, Moon-gwang (Lee Jung-eun). But she is quickly disposed of and replaced with the Kim family matriarch, Chung-sook (Jang Hye-jin), through a complex frame job, paving the way for the entire Kim family to become cozily ingratiated into the Park's home. The Kims use nearly every dirty trick in the book to get into the Parks' good graces and wallets, but somehow they remain sympathetic--if only because the adults of the Park household are so selfish and boorish that to the audience, they "have it coming". Despite appearing to engender the trust of the Parks, Dong-ik and Yeon-gyo always keep their servants at arms length, secretly judging them simply because they aren't as wealthy as they are. In spite of the criminal lengths to which the Kims go to get at the Park family's wealth, like Robin Hood, they are painted as the "heroes" of Parasite.
The overall story of Parasite is a familiar one: it's okay to deceive the foolish and rude because they don't deserve their blessings. It's been done in films ranging from Overboard and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels to even My Man Godfrey to a lesser extent. Parasite often paints its metaphors in broad strokes, like when the Kims escape the Park home in the midst of a terrible rainstorm, only to discover that their cavernous apartment has become submerged in sewage. As they scramble to return home, they are constantly descending along narrow staircases attached to cliff sides and through the sinking, flooded streets in their slums--as if returning to the hell from whence they escaped. The Parks reside in a house designed by a famous architect, but they have little to no appreciation for it; they likely bought it only because it was fashionable. Yet their home--as beautiful as it may be on the inside--is guarded from the outside like a compound, surely to keep out the likes of the Kims, making their incursion all the more ironic. Small touches hint at a past for the Kims that probably wasn't as bleak and cynical as their current lifestyle is. Ki-taek keeps a medal framed on their apartment wall, and there is a brief discussion with Min that suggests that Ki-woo learned his English in the military. Ki-taek takes great pride in his daughter's ability to forge convincing documents, like a father might be proud to see his child produce an illustrious work of art. The Kims have, however, allowed cynicism to twist their own values. They are unabashed in swearing among one another, and take pride in the self-serving pursuit of wealth for its own sake. It seems like a convenient coincidence that the Parks are unlikable, because it probably doesn't really matter much to the Kims who gets hurt in their scramble for money, so long as they come out on top. In this way, Parasite is a commentary on how the mindless pursuit of wealth for its own sake becomes a compulsion that ultimately destroys everything and everyone it touches. The Parks may be soulless caricatures of rich entitlement and arrogance, but the Kims become the real victims of the film because of their hollow insistence on cheating the rich out of their wealth because they feel like it's all just a natural part of their winner-take-all society.
Recommended for: Fans of a film about the corrosive effects of greed on both the victims and perpetrators of fraud. Parasite toys with the audience's perception about who the heroes and villains of the film are, and glides between satire and melodrama as the story unfolds.
The overall story of Parasite is a familiar one: it's okay to deceive the foolish and rude because they don't deserve their blessings. It's been done in films ranging from Overboard and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels to even My Man Godfrey to a lesser extent. Parasite often paints its metaphors in broad strokes, like when the Kims escape the Park home in the midst of a terrible rainstorm, only to discover that their cavernous apartment has become submerged in sewage. As they scramble to return home, they are constantly descending along narrow staircases attached to cliff sides and through the sinking, flooded streets in their slums--as if returning to the hell from whence they escaped. The Parks reside in a house designed by a famous architect, but they have little to no appreciation for it; they likely bought it only because it was fashionable. Yet their home--as beautiful as it may be on the inside--is guarded from the outside like a compound, surely to keep out the likes of the Kims, making their incursion all the more ironic. Small touches hint at a past for the Kims that probably wasn't as bleak and cynical as their current lifestyle is. Ki-taek keeps a medal framed on their apartment wall, and there is a brief discussion with Min that suggests that Ki-woo learned his English in the military. Ki-taek takes great pride in his daughter's ability to forge convincing documents, like a father might be proud to see his child produce an illustrious work of art. The Kims have, however, allowed cynicism to twist their own values. They are unabashed in swearing among one another, and take pride in the self-serving pursuit of wealth for its own sake. It seems like a convenient coincidence that the Parks are unlikable, because it probably doesn't really matter much to the Kims who gets hurt in their scramble for money, so long as they come out on top. In this way, Parasite is a commentary on how the mindless pursuit of wealth for its own sake becomes a compulsion that ultimately destroys everything and everyone it touches. The Parks may be soulless caricatures of rich entitlement and arrogance, but the Kims become the real victims of the film because of their hollow insistence on cheating the rich out of their wealth because they feel like it's all just a natural part of their winner-take-all society.
Recommended for: Fans of a film about the corrosive effects of greed on both the victims and perpetrators of fraud. Parasite toys with the audience's perception about who the heroes and villains of the film are, and glides between satire and melodrama as the story unfolds.