Although it’s in Korean and has limited theatrical release in the U.S., there’s no doubt in my mind that Parasite was the best movie of 2019. Sorry to burst your bubble, comic book movie stans. I won’t give away the plot at all, but just give a general overview of Parasite and why you need to find a theater that’s showing this movie.
Living in Los Angeles, I’m lucky that this is the capital of the movie industry, but even here, I had to drive a solid 25 minutes to the closest theater showing Parasite; so I can see the challenge if you live in a more rural area. But man was it worth the trek. I’ll admit I was hesitant at first being that I’d never seen a Korean movie before and wasn’t sure if the culture would translate – but it definitely did. The movie seldom used Korean-specific references, so my American brain was not thrown off by anything. And this isn’t a dialogue-filled movie, so even if you’re a person who hates subtitles, it’s not hard to follow along with at all.
I also kept getting asked if this was a horror movie because of the title, but it’s not. Maybe some people thought it had to do with an infestation of bugs or something, but ‘parasite’ is meant to describe the characters in the film, who are metaphorically parasites to society.
Movie Summary (No Spoilers)
So this movie follows the Kim family – a poor family living in basically the slums of South Korea. None of them (father, mother, son, daughter) have steady work, so they basically just do freelance work for random businesses – they’re folding pizza boxes for a pizza shop in the beginning of the movie. Then, the son’s (Ki-woo) wealthy friend (Min) visits him and tells him to take over as an English tutor for the family of a wealthy family’s daughter (Da-hye). This wealthy family is the Park’s, and they have no idea that the Kim family is going to change their lives.
The Park family consists of a father, mother, son, and daughter as well. The father (Dong-ik) is a rich businessman, so he leaves all of the family stuff to his stay-at-home wife (Yeon-kyo). She is very impressionable, and the Kim’s take advantage of that. Ki-woo establishes a relationship with the Park’s and eventually convinces Yeon-ko to hire each member of his family to work for them. His sister (Ki-jung) gets hired as an art tutor for the Park’s youngest son, the father becomes the family chauffeur, and the mother becomes the maid. And at no time do they tell the Park’s that they’re related – which makes things veryyyy interesting.
It might sound simple enough to convince a wealthy family to hire help, but the way they do it is savagely executed. They lie, get people fired, and there is one hell of a twist(s) at the end. This film might redefine what a thriller is…it’s so unique because in between the tense moments, they work in comedy and bring you back down to earth. What a gem.
Trust me, it doesn’t have a 99% on Rotten Tomatoes for nothing. Go see ‘Parasite’, trust me.
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