August 24 2025, 17:56

Parasite

Director: Bong Joon Ho

Release year: 2019

A family friend grants Ki-woo an opportunity to teach English to the daughter of a rich businessman, Mr Park. Ki-woo’s family is struggling to make ends meet, and they live in a basement flat in the poorest part of town. Once he’s secured the teaching job, Ki-woo and his family manipulate the Parks into hiring Ki-woo’s sister, father and mother, replacing all the existing staff. But the modernist house contains unexpected secrets, and their parasitic peace doesn’t last long.

I didn’t see this when it came out, and I can see why it won the main Oscars in 2020—it’s a masterpiece, and a rare hit film that takes a sledgehammer to the ideals of capitalism. The Park family live in a secluded house built by a famous architect in an exclusive part of Seoul high in the hills. When a storm sweeps through Seoul, the water flows downwards and floods the poor neighbourhoods with sewerage, and the rich don't even notice. Every relationship is transactional to the Park adults, although the younger children are shown as more innocent.

The Kim children are as corrupt as their parents, but no matter how hard they try, they can’t lift their family out of poverty. They are fighting a losing battle when they play by the rules. It’s hard not to cheer for them when they break rules to even the scales.

It all falls apart when they fail to show mercy to others in the same class as them. Once the workers stop helping each other, the rich win. The beautifully stark concrete house has a basement, and in the architect's paranoia, a basement far below that that’s more like a bunker. There are metaphors galore in this film. The wealth stone given to the Kims at the start of the story is one of the film’s best ironies.

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