Parasite [Gisaengchung] **** (2019, Kang-ho Song, Sun-kyun Lee, Yeo-jeong Jo, Woo-sik Choi, Hye-jin Jang, So-dam Park, Ji-so Jung) – Movie Review

Co-writer/ director Bong Joon Ho’s Cannes Palme d’Or and triple Oscar winner Parasite [Gisaengchung] (2019) is fascinating, provocative and thought provoking in a way that is not normal for a thriller. But then Parasite is not really a thriller. Fans of thrillers may find this frustrating. It is a blend of genres – social comment movie, comedy, crime film, drama and horror movie.

Appreciation will depend on openness to the genre-bending blend and acceptance of a movie that runs in a very non-American kind of way. Though it strains the thriller to near breaking point, it is a very expert blend of its genres. Is it trying to do too many things? Would it be better as a straight thriller?

Woo-sik Choi stars as unemployed young adult Kim Ki-woo, who, along with his poverty-stricken mother and father Kim Chung-sook (Hye-jin Jang) and Kim Ki-taek (Kang-ho Song) and sister Kim Ki-jung (So-dam Park), ingratiate themselves by cheating and lying into the lives and wealth of the rich, glamorous Park family in Seoul, South Korea, by getting hired as tutor, housekeeper, driver and life coach.

Notwithstanding his lack university education, Ki-woo is chosen by his student friend Min (Seo-joon Park) to take over his job of tutoring the family’s precocious young daughter Park Da-hye (Ji-so Jung). Min intends eventually to return to his job and marry Da-hye.

Ki-woo, and then his family, greedily, graspingly and gleefully move in on The Parks, who have lived for four years in a luxurious modernistic house designed by famed architect Namsoong, whose former residence it was, in sharp contrast of course to the shabby little half-basement flat the poor Kims live in, in their bad part of town. We are on the side of the Kims.

After Ki-woo ingratiates himself with the rather silly and deluded Mrs Park Yeon-kyo (Yeo-jeong Jo), it is easy to plot to get the original housekeeper (Jeong-eun Lee) and driver fired, so the Kim family can take over. The more canny businessman husband Mr Park Dong-ik (Lee Sun-kyun) is initially taken in by Mr Kim, but the only trouble is, he smells a rat. Well, what he smells is his new chauffeur Mr Kim’s dirty, lower-class body. The social satire here is a little unsubtle and clumsy but amusing enough.

All good so far then. Jin Won Han wrote the screenplay with Bong Joon Ho, based on the story by Bong Joon Ho. It has an excellent premise. But the screenplay has its flaws. Sometimes it lacks subtlety, clarity and concision. It isn’t taut, though it is tense and bristling and exciting. Parasite runs to 2 hours and 12 minutes, when some neat surgical cuts out of it of around 15 minutes would produce a much more intense and more totally satisfying film. Its conclusion isn’t totally satisfying either.

Parasite weirdly has things in common with Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood. Both start very brightly, with a clever premise, fascinating characters and good actors. They have a slow but effective build-up, then start to stall around half way of over-long running times, and then are revived by a bloodbath with some appalling violence, before setting down to a quiet, ironic conclusion. In both cases, it is all very Shakespearean. Bong Joon Ho Shakespearean, yes. Tarantino Shakespearean? Wow!

As it is, Parasite is a good film, maybe even arguably a great film, though it doesn’t quite feel like a Best Motion Picture of the Year or a Palme d’Or winner.

The acting though is indisputably first rate, with Bong Joon Ho regular actor Kang-ho Song outstanding. It is his fourth film with the director. Woo-sik Choi (young Kim), Jeong-eun Lee (housekeeper) and (Yeo-jeong Jo (Mrs Park) are excellent too in a uniformly fine ensemble. And the direction is first rate, too, abounding in confidence and expertise.

On 9 February 2010, Parasite became the first South Korean film to win an Oscar. It won four Oscars; Best Motion Picture of the Year, Best Achievement in Directing, Best Original Screenplay and Best International Feature Film. The Golden Globes saw it in a different way and voted it Best Motion Picture – Foreign Language, with the BAFTA Film Awards going to Best Film Not in the English Language and Best Screenplay (Original).

One thing’s for sure, the Parks’ modernistic house can have any awards anyone cares to chuck on it.

Parasite is filmed at Goyang Aqua Studio, 250 Tongil-ro 396beon-gil, Deogyang-gu, Goyang, South Korea. Ha-jun Lee and Won-woo Cho’s Production Design’s is eye-poppingly sleek and stylish. The Parks’ house, said in the film to be designed by fictional architect Namgoong Hyeonja, was a set built from scratch.

And now there is also a black and white version. Bong Joon Ho says: ‘I think with the black and white version, you focus more on the actors’ performances.’

Donald Trump said on 20 February 2020: ‘How bad were the Academy Awards this year? The winner is a movie from South Korea, what the hell was that all about? We got enough problems with South Korea with trade and on top of it, they give them the best movie of the year. Was it good? I don’t know.’

Lee Sun-kyun, who plays the Park family father Dong-ik in the 2019 thriller Parasite, was found dead in his car after an apparent suicide aged 48 after being investigated for alleged drug use.

Lee Sun-kyun, who plays Park Dong-ik, the Park family father, was found dead inside his car at a park in central Seoul on 27 December 2023 after an apparent suicide at the age of 48. He had been investigated for alleged drug use.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Movie Review

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