Parasite Review
Meet the Park Family: the picture of aspirational wealth. And the Kim Family, rich in street smarts but not much else. Be it chance or fate, these two houses are brought together and the Kims sense a golden opportunity. Masterminded by college-aged Ki-woo, the Kim children expediently install themselves as tutors and art therapists to the Parks. Soon, a symbiotic relationship forms between the two families. The Kims provide "indispensable" luxury services while the Parks obliviously bankroll their entire household. When a parasitic interloper threatens the Kims' newfound comfort, a savage, underhanded battle for dominance breaks out, threatening to destroy the fragile ecosystem between the Kims and the Parks.
R: For language, some violence and sexual contentProduction Companies: Barunson E&A Corp, CJ EntertainmentDistributor: NEONRuntime: 2 Hours and 12 MinutesDirector: Bong Joon-hoWriters: Bong Joon-ho, Han Jin-wonCast: Song Kang-ho, Lee Sun-kyun, Cho Yeo-jeong, Choi Woo-shik, Park So-damRelease Date: October 11, 2019Since May, I’ve been hearing this film’s praises from Cannes and feeling major FOMO, especially since witnessing the birth of the #BongHive on Twitter and learning that it won the Palme D’Or prize. You know that FOMO is so infectious that it makes you do crazy things. On the first night of TIFF, my dumbass went to the extensive rush line at the film’s first screening. Of course, I didn’t get in and I knew it would be a long shot to try to rush any of the later screenings at the festival. Thankfully, I got to see the film in my town in NYC a few days before the NYFF P&I. Let me tell you, my expectations were hella high and yet, they managed to be exceeded… so exceeded that I ended up seeing this movie twice within a five-day span. I knew this movie was going to be good, but I didn’t expect it to be phenomenal! Sorry to every other foreign — or, I guess, international — film of the year. It’s Bong Joon-ho season, baby!
This is that time of the year where most of the best movies are so story-driven that it’s incredibly hard to describe the plot without giving anything away. So, as the average critic that I am, let me set it up for you. Meet the Kims, a poor-as-dirt family that lives in the semi-basement of an apartment, which comes with terrible consequences and disadvantages, especially when you’re at the bottom, such as being able to find WiFi and doing your damnedest to find an unsecured network (believe me, I have been there). They try their best to hustle together as a unit in order to make whatever wealth they can. The college-aged son, Ki-woo, gets a hookup from a friend of his to take over as a tutor for the wealthy upper-class Park family. As soon as he gets the position, he hatches a plan to get his entire family employed at the Park household, whether a position is open for them or not, getting people who already work for them fired in the process. You know what they say: the family that infiltrates a wealthy home together, stays together.
Jordan Peele and Bong Joon-ho might be the only filmmakers who know how to deliver thrilling films with a dark comedic backbone centered on class and make them feel like a million movies in one while delivering an effective narrative with many unexpected twists. Admittedly, this was my first Joon-ho movie and it kind of motivated me to watch some of his other films to get a sense of his stylings. Upon watching Memories of Murder and Snowpiercer it’s safe to say that this man is a fucking genius. I don’t think any other director is capable of such a palpable range in storytelling while being able to organically shift the tones of his narrative multiple times within one movie. How do I talk about this movie without retreading the same beats as every other film critic out there? How does one talk about this movie without swooning over it or crafting a love letter to Bong Joon-ho’s mind? Ugh, his mind. As I left the theater, the first words that were uttered under my breath was, “Oh, so this is what Cinema feels like?” Parasite brilliantly delivers a thought-provoking theme of class underneath its comedically dark story that blends so many genres in a cohesively strong and tight narrative. The variety of eccentric and quirky characters whose financial wealth, or lack thereof, affects their personalities so the collision between the Kims and the Parks results in hilarious exchanges that make you burst a funny bone, specifically how they infiltrate all of the roles within that household in a heist-like style. To focus on the Kims for a bit, while they’re not all good people on a surface level, the camaraderie that they share, working together as a unit while looking out for each other, is the primary heart and soul of the film that made me immediately fall in love with them. They might as well have a shrine for My Hero Academia’s All Might because they truly abide by “one for all”, as in one helps all of them get a job. Every time you would question yourself for siding with them based on the actions that they do, you immediately must reflect on yourself, and even if you don’t the movie does a great job exhibiting the natural consequences that makes you fully sympathize even though they are bad people. In my previous review, Marriage Story, I discussed how Baumbach brilliantly writes heavily flawed people that you still root for. Joon-ho kind of takes it further in an even rarer case where he brilliantly writes completely unlikeable people but you still manage to root for them. You even grow fond of the wealthy Park family because they have a sweet unity dynamic where you still see the love they share and their ability to have a carefree life.
Performance-wise, everyone is absolutely fantastic, but BJH’s BFF Song Kang-ho, who has been in a majority of his films, friggin’ rules here. He plays the patriarch of the Kim family who is wise and loving to his kids, but in the latter half he delivers some hysterical physical comedy where his expressions to the insane situations outside of him say it all. He delivers several chilling speeches to his kids that make your spine get that winter vibe.Having such a large ensemble of distinguishable characters holds the picture together, but it’s the story and the interweaving of different genres without holding any emphasis to one that bolsters Parasite to masterpiece levels. Without going too much into detail, the thoroughly original fresh screenplay is full of wit and inventiveness with the perfect blend of drama, comedy, chills, and thrills. There are so many comedic sequences and unforgettable moments that I still can’t stop giggling about. If this was in the hands of anyone else, they would’ve added too much comedy to drag out a scene, or too much violence to engage a higher level of shock value, but fucking BJH pulls a Goldilocks and gets it just right. Even when this movie starts to lose its damn mind, it’s psychotic, like something straight out of Blumhouse but with a stronger subtext. Despite screaming, “What the fuck?!” multiple times, IT STILL MANAGES TO BE CLEVER AND NATURALLY PUT TOGETHER AS A FULL, THOROUGH NARRATIVE! This is grand storytelling at its finest, kind of the means of a fable or a biblical story, but damn that screenplay. *Chef’s Kiss*
Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite is a delectable genre-bending cinematic masterpiece that reiterates the mastermind of visionary Bong Joon-ho. Rating: 5/5 | 95%God, now it’s time to watch the rest of his filmography. I’m now a BJH stan. #BongHive, here I come.
