Bong Joon Ho sets the history of an international box-office smash and Oscar Best Foreign Language Film-winner. “A comedy without clowns, a tragedy without villains”, Parasite tells a story of two families from opposite social and economic disparity that is the fundamental theme of this film. The first family was led by the father, Kim Ki Taek (Song Kang Ho) and mother Chuung Seok (Chang Hyae Jin), an unemployed family, live in their semi-basement level home, hunting for free WiFi signal and leaving opened the windows for free extermination of the insects in their house.
Their current sources of income are from temporary jobs like fixing pizza boxes. So when their son Kim Ki Woo (Choi Woo Shik) gets an opportunity by a friend to be set as an English tutor to the daughter of a wealthy, he suggested his sister Kim Ki Jeong (Park So Dam) to forge a college certification and scheme their way to get into Mr. Park’s house. After careful scheming and a well-rehearsed plan, their parents are employed in the household.
Come the second family led by Mr. Park (Lee Sun Kyun), an aloof businessman, living in an architectural luxurious mansion with his uptight wife, Yeon Kyo (Cho Yeo Jeong) and the daughter Park Da Hye (Jeong Ji So) and their hyperactive son Park Da Song (Jung Hyeon Jun).
There are a series of events where the social disparity where the two families are sweating class differences. Director Bang Joon Ho’s screenplay bounces into unexpected plot twists and thrilling yet mind-boggling climax. Through Parasite, the director gives a very clear picture of the South Korean society where unequal distributions of wealth have resulted in the “rice becoming richer, poor becoming poorer”.
For me, Parasite is a tale of how one event is constructed brilliantly into another plot, at the same time bringing the audience insight to the reality in human behaviors.