“The winner is… a movie from South Korea! What the hell was that all about?” - President Donald Trump

Parasite is a 2019 South Korean (sorry…afraid the president already let the cat out the bag on that) film about the relationship between two families, the ultra-wealthy Parks and the near destitute Kims.

The short, not too spoilerly, version is that one of the Kims - Ki Woo (Choi Woo Sik - Train to Busan) - lucks into a job as a tutor with the Parks. Through a series of clever, fraud-filled, and often funny maneuvers, he then gets his sister, Ki Jung (Park So Dam), a job with them and soon after the entire Kim family is working for the Parks.

Although “frauds,” the Kims all do really well at their jobs - in part because the Parks believe they are good at them. That is one of the many themes that run through the film: people are considered one thing or another because people assume it based on what others tell them, not an objective read of their knowledge or ability.

One of many examples is Ki Jung, being lauded by Mrs. Park (Cho Yeo Jeong) for her knowledge of Art Therapy. Although, as Ki Jung tell her family, “I just looked it up on the Internet,” the fact that Mrs. Park has been told Ki Jung is an expert leads her to interpret all of her actions as those of an expert - albeit a somewhat eccentric one. The film is full of this sort of thing, ‘though not so much that it becomes a distraction.

Things go well…until they don’t.

Going too much past the setup gets into massive Spoiler territory, so we won’t go there, but we will say that by mid-film what starts off as a slightly offbeat light comedy takes a decidedly dark and bloody turn.

So is this film any good?

It is.

From a technical, visual, scripting, and acting perspective it is superb. The director, Bong Joon Ho (Snowpiercer), knows his craft and the team he put together deserve the Oscar they won for this.

Even more important are the various thematic threads he weaves into the story.

Perception shaping reality, the determinism of class and birth over talent, the parasitic (duh) - though I would argue that in the case of this film, symbiotic might be more accurate - relationship between different economic groups, and the tendency to dehumanize people outside one’s own group all come into play. Also, a seemingly minor but hugely important one was the idea that, depending on one’s circumstance, the same event (in the case of the movie, a rain storm) can be an entertaining nuisance for some and a life changing disaster for others.

On a personal note: I suspect part of the appeal to U.S. audiences is that Parasite as an unapologetically Korean film. The language, people, street scenes, and many aspects of the culture provide an exotic “newness” that will catch people’s attention. Living in Korea for a decade and a half, I did not feel that. I did, however, recognize many, many tropes and truths about Korea society from my time there and felt the film captured many of the complex and often contradictory forces that drive life in that country.

You can catch Parasite HERE.

Five out of Five Peaches.

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Ready for a taste?