Summaries
Parasite (2019) - Greed and class discrimination threaten the newly formed symbiotic
relationship between the wealthy Park family and the destitute Kim clan.
—Jwelch5742
The Kims - mother and father Chung-sook and Ki-taek, and their
young adult offspring, son Ki-woo and daughter Ki-jung - are a poor family
living in a shabby and cramped half basement apartment in a busy lower working
class commercial district of Seoul. Without even knowing it, they, especially
Mr. and Mrs. Kim, literally smell of poverty. Often as a collective, they
perpetrate minor scams to get by, and even when they have jobs, they do the
minimum work required. Ki-woo is the one who has dreams of getting out of
poverty by one day going to university. Despite not having that university
education, Ki-woo is chosen by his university student friend Min, who is
leaving to go to school, to take over his tutoring job to Park Da-hye, who Min
plans to date once he returns to Seoul and she herself is in university. The
Parks are a wealthy family who for four years have lived in their modernistic
house designed by and the former residence of famed architect Namgoong. While
Mr. and Mrs. Park are all about status, Mrs. Park has a flighty, simpleminded
mentality and temperament, which Min tells Ki-woo to feel comfortable in lying
to her about his education to get the job. In getting the job, Ki-woo further
learns that Mrs. Park is looking for an art therapist for the Parks' adolescent
son, Da-song, Ki-woo quickly recommending his professional art therapist friend
"Jessica", really Ki-jung who he knows can pull off the scam in being
the easiest liar of the four Kims. In Ki-woo also falling for Da-hye, he begins
to envision himself in that house, and thus the Kims as a collective start a
plan for all the Kims, like Ki-jung using assumed names, to replace existing
servants in the Parks' employ in orchestrating reasons for them to be fired.
The most difficult to get rid of may be Moon-gwang, the Parks' housekeeper who literally
came with the house - she Namgoong's housekeeper when he lived there - and thus
knows all the little nooks and crannies of it better than the Parks themselves.
The question then becomes how far the Kims can take this scam in their quest to
become their version of the Parks.
—Huggo
Jobless, penniless, and, above all, hopeless, the unmotivated
patriarch, Ki-taek, and his equally unambitious family--his supportive wife,
Chung-sook; his cynical twentysomething daughter, Ki-jung, and his college-age
son, Ki-woo--occupy themselves by working for peanuts in their squalid
basement-level apartment. Then, by sheer luck, a lucrative business proposition
will pave the way for an ingeniously insidious scheme, as Ki-woo summons up the
courage to pose as an English tutor for the teenage daughter of the affluent
Park family. Now, the stage seems set for an unceasing winner-take-all class
war. How does one get rid of a parasite?
—Nick Riganas
Director: Bong Joon Ho
Writers: Bong Joon Ho (story), Bong Joon Ho (screenplay)
Stars: Kang-ho Song, Sun-kyun Lee, Yeo-jeong
Jo
Taglines:
Uncontainable desire. (US teaser poster)
Genres: Comedy | Drama | Thriller
Certification
MPAA Rated R for language, some violence and
sexual content
Argentina:13 Australia:MA15+ Belgium:KT/EA
Brazil:16 Canada:14A (British Columbia) Canada:14A (Ontario)
Canada:13+ (Quebec) Chile:14 Colombia:15 Ecuador:12
(Guayaquil) Ecuador:15 (Quito) Finland:K-16 France:Tous
publics avec avertissement Germany:16 Hong Kong:IIB
Hungary:16 India:A Indonesia:17+ Ireland:16
Israel:16 Italy:VM14 Japan:PG12 Luxembourg:12
Malaysia:18 Mexico:B15 Netherlands:16 New Zealand:R13
Norway:15 (2019, cinema rating) Philippines:R-13
Portugal:M/14 Russia:18+ Singapore:M18 South Korea:15
Spain:16 (ICAA) Sweden:15 Switzerland:14 Taiwan:R-12
Thailand:15 United Kingdom:15 United States:R (certificate
#52376) Ukraine:16 Vietnam:C18
Movie Review
I am remarkably stingy with my
10/10 ratings. I'll be the first person to acknowledge this. Of the roughly
2600 titles I've rated on here, only 34 have a 10. Parasite is one of them. If
this isn't a masterpiece, then I don't know what is.
I'm going to keep it vague on the plot-front, because I didn't
know anything about it going in, and was really excited to see it progress and
unfold in satisfying, unexpected ways.
What I will say is that this film, more than just about any other
I've seen, put me through so many different emotional states during its
132-minute runtime, and did so without ever feeling muddled or tonally
inconsistent. Parts of this movie were hilarious. Parts were heartbreaking.
Other parts were insanely suspenseful (I'm honestly not sure if I've felt this
close to the edge of my seat since the final season of Breaking Bad, way back
in 2013).
And it does all this while being perfectly paced, beautifully
directed, and amazingly acted from every single member of its cast. All the
characters are understandable and sympathetic to some degree; the amount of
conflict, drama and tension derived from a narrative with no clear heroes and
villains is staggering. You come to care for just about all of them.
I'm stumped to come up with any flaws for this movie. And sure,
I've seen many movies that are hard to fault, but it's rare that a movie
appeals to me on a gut level and excites me to this degree while also being so
close to technically perfect. It's extremely entertaining, thoroughly moving in
so many different ways, and as icing on the cake there's a ton of social
commentary and some heavy themes to chew on once the movie's over (and this
one's not going to leave my head for a while, I can tell).
Catch this one when you can and believe the hype. Joon-Ho Bong has
made many great films (and so far no bad one's), but this even manages to stand
head and shoulders above all the others.
When it comes time to consider what the best film of the 2010s
was, this one will surely be up there.
Details
Country: South Korea
Language: Korean | English
Release Date: 7 February 2020 (UK)
Also Known As: Parasite: Black & White Edition
Filming Locations: Goyang Aqua Studio - 250 Tongil-ro
396beon-gil, Deogyang-gu, Goyang, South Korea
Box Office
Budget: $11,400,000 (estimated)
Opening Weekend USA: $393,216, 13 October 2019
Gross USA: $53,369,749
Cumulative Worldwide Gross: $257,592,991
Company Credits
Production Co: Barunson E&A, CJ E&M Film
Financing & Investment Entertainment & Comics, CJ Entertainment
Technical Specs
Runtime: 132 min
Sound Mix: Dolby Atmos | Dolby Digital
Color: Color
Aspect Ratio: 2.39 : 1
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