Parasite (Film Review)

Just watched this explosive film and I loved it. I don't even know where to begin, but it definitely deserves all the awards that it has received.

Parasite starts by showing us the main characters of the film: the Kim family. They are immediately depicted to be parasites - Ki-woo and Ki-jeong, the son and daughter in the family, are seen trying to take advantage of their neighbour's WiFi, but they've been locked out. They find another signal near the toilet, which is already humorous in itself. The family complains about the bugs that they have to live with in their semi-basement of an apartment, and tries to take advantage of fumigation to get rid of them since it is free. Essentially, the parasites are trying to get rid of their own parasites. 

As the first half of the film progress, the story gets increasingly comical as well as dark. Ki-woo's friend recommends him for a job as an English tutor - which he gladly accepts. With the help of his sister, they create a forged certificate and he pretends to have the qualifications of a university student. Gradually, the entire Kim family works for the wealthy Park family. Ki-woo recommends Ki-jeong to be their son's art therapist, and the siblings work together to get rid of the family chauffeur so that their dad can be hired. Then, the three of them get rid of the housekeeper and replace her with their mum. All this time, the mother of the Park family doesn't suspect a thing and she is described by Ki-woo's friend as "simple". 

The Kim family works for the Parks and pretends that they are not related to one another. The families form a parasitic relationship since the Kims rely on the Parks to earn a living while the Parks rely on the Kims to run the house, take care of the kids. For instance, they require a housekeeper to carry out household chores such as cooking and cleaning because the father of the Park family claims that his wife is just bad at those things. The way the Kims sneakily get jobs to work for the rich family is so funny.

But everything goes horribly wrong in the second half of the film. When the Park family goes on a camping trip (because it's their son's birthday), the Kims relax in the humongous house, drink alcohol and live it up. However, the ex-housekeeper shows up in the rain all wet, insisting that she left something in the basement of the house because she didn't have time to take it when they dismissed her so suddenly. The other three family members hide as the mom of the Kim family lets her in. 

Then it is revealed that the house hosts an actual parasite - the ex-housekeeper's husband! He has been living in a secret underground bunker this entire time! That explains why the father of the Park family said that she always ate for two people. It later also explains why the son of the Park family saw a ghost in the house. It wasn't a ghost at all since it was the husband sneaking around at night. Apparently, he borrowed money from loan sharks and couldn't repay them, so he has decided to live out his life in hiding.

After a while, both families find out about one another but both sides are antagonistic towards each other. The mother of the Kim family refuses to help feed the "ghost" in the basement and so the ex-housekeeper and her husband threaten to expose the Kim family. Instead of realising that they are all poor and should help one another, they end up fighting to survive. After all, the families are merely trying to protect themselves and they only care about their own interests. This is a recurring theme throughout the entire film - when they Kim family was drinking and chatting in the living room of the huge house, Kim Ki-taek (the father) wondered if the ex-chauffeur was able to find a new job. His son (I think) told him off and said something like, "Don't care about that! Care about us!"

Due to the scuffle between the two poor parasitic families, Moon-gwang (the ex-housekeeper) was hit and she fell down the stairs, suffering a concussion. The Park family returns home early from their camping trip due to the rain so the members of the Kim family quickly clean up the mess they've created and sneak out of the house, but not before hiding under a table and listening to the Park couple make out on the couch. While hiding, they also hear the man of the house complaining about how Ki-taek smells of the underground, maybe because he has to take public transport. 

When the family finally sneaks out, they get drenched and to their horror, their semi-basement apartment is completely flooded, so they have to sleep in a gymnasium with others who have also been affected by the storm. The contrast in the film is absolutely brilliant - first of all, the film juxtaposes the tiny semi-basement apartment with the huge mansion that the Parks live in. They show Ki-woo being in complete awe when he first entered the house for his interview. Next, the film highlights the theme of income inequality even more when they show us the three members of the Kim family rushing down an extremely long flight of stairs to get to their apartment, which again, is a semi-basement. This to me symbolises that the family is looked down on and they are at the bottom of society. They have to work very hard and climb all those steps to get to the top, whereas for the rich family, they just need to put in a little bit of effort and walk up a short flight of stairs to get to their house, i.e. their position in society.

Also, the son of the Park family decided to take his tent (that his parents imported from America) out to the backyard and sleep outside as a show of protest that he didn't want the camping trip to end. He is privileged enough to choose to do so, as this is a stark contrast to all those who have been displaced by the flood who are forced to "camp" outside their houses. In addition, whenever the Park family is shown on screen, they are usually alone or with small groups of people. This is juxtaposed with the Kim family, who is usually seen huddled close together at home or at crowded places such as when they were stuck at the gymnasium with others. 

The rich and poor divide is even more evident when Mrs. Park decides to throw an impromptu birthday party for her son since the trip didn't turn out well. She doesn't realise that her employees have suffered due to the storm, and she's in her own bubble of privilege. She invites them to the party and asks them to help out, but it is at the party where everything comes to a head. Moon-gwang (the ex-housekeeper) had a concussion and her husband had to watch her die in the basement. As he has been living in a basement for four years, he was already unhinged. This was clear when Ki-taek saw him hitting his head against the light switches, tricking the Park family into thinking that the switches were operated by motion sensors. He had pictures of Mr Park in his bunker and worshipped him as if he were a god.

During the party, the Kim family didn't have a proper plan for the first time. Ki-woo planned to murder the two in the basement, while Ki-jeong and her mom felt bad and wanted to bring food downstairs but were interrupted by Mrs Park. So when Ki-woo takes his rock downstairs he gets ambushed by the deranged Geun-sae who bludgeons him in the head with it. Then, he grabs a knife as he walks past the kitchen and makes his way to the backyard.

Since the Park family's son is obsessed with Native American stuff, Mr Park told Ki-taek that the two of them would dress up as Native Americans and pretend to attack Ki-jeong, who would be the cake princess, and then his son can play the hero. It is absolutely tragic that the cake princess really needed to be saved - not because of "Indians" (cultural appropriation) but because of Geun-sae, who notices her holding the cake in the middle of the backyard and stabs her right in the chest.

The whole party descends into chaos and madness. The camera shifts here and there to show us what Ki-taek is witnessing. Mr Park's son collapses and has one of his seizures. In the distance, his son clearly has a head injury and is being carried by the daughter of the Park family (the two of them had a thing for each other. If this movie wasn't a thriller but a romcom, they would be declaring their love publicly and trying to persuade their parents to agree to the match. This self-aware film even joked about this when Ki-woo was imagining getting married to her and having to bring in actors to play his parents, since that is what would probably happen in a cliche k-drama). His daughter has been stabbed and even though it is futile, he's trying to stop the bleeding by pressing his hands against her wound, leaving him with blood red hands. His wife had taken a skewer to protect her family and kills Geun-sae in self-defence. His boss Mr Park is asking him, as the driver, to throw him the car keys so that he can take his son to the hospital. He throws them over at the same time Geun-sae's body hits the ground, so Mr Park has to grab the keys from under the guy who had been living his basement for four years. He manages to get the keys, but he pinches his nose because of the underground smell.

I was appalled by this entire scene because what Mr and Mrs Park did and didn't do disgusted me. At least their daughter had the decency to rescue Ki-woo. Her parents did not care one bit about the fact that two people just died in their yard, and one of them is actually their son's art teacher. He's probably going to be even more traumatised because his art teacher was stabbed to death right in front of him. Instead of doing the humane thing and grabbing both their son and his art teacher, they only fussed over their own son. Sure, they didn't know that Ki-taek was actually Ki-jeong's father, but she was still an employee. She was still a human being. Yet her life clearly didn't matter at all. As I mentioned earlier, these families only care about themselves.

It wasn't surprising when Ki-taek inadvertently snapped and killed Mr Park right there and then. The scenes prior to this murder showed that Ki-taek was angry with him for the comment about his smell. Apparently, all of the Kims smelled like the underground. Mr Park's son noticed that they smelled the same and Mr Park himself mentioned the smell to his wife too. But it isn't just the comment about smell and it isn't just about how Mr Park pinched his nose instead of offering to help Ki-jeong. This comes back to the theme of the divide between the rich and the poor. Ki-taek had conversations with Mr Park and he would say that Mr Park loves his wife. To Mr Park, Ki-taek was about to cross a line when he said that, since Park doesn't think that his employee should be making comments about his personal life.

But to me, I see it as how the rich want to be separated from the poor. They want to maintain this divide because, well, who would they be without it? Mr Park distances himself from Ki-taek not just because Ki-taek is his chauffeur but because he doesn't like the smell of poor people and doesn't want to be reminded of their existence. He would prefer living in his own bubble of wealth and privilege. Even though he possesses the resources to do some charitable work and help those affected by the storm, he doesn't. He would prefer to organise a Native American themed party for his spoiled son instead, because he simply doesn't want to know anything about Ki-taek's life and by extension, how any poor person lives, even though the rich and the poor have more in common than we think: In the film, Mrs Park calls ahead to notify her housekeeper that they are arriving home so that she can cook them a fancy sounding dish - which actually turns out to just be instant noodles. 

Sure, the poor families were fighting each other, but that is because to them, their survival and social mobility depends on the Park family. However, the Park family does not think that their survival is dependent on their servants and the working class and chooses to keep away from them even though they rely on them for almost everything. As what Mrs Kim said, "They are nice because they are rich. Money is an iron - it smooths out the wrinkles." The Park family is nice because they have the privilege and resources to be nice. They can afford to hire help, and they can afford to pay the hired help a little more to help out at their son's party. 

They can afford to hire Ki-woo in the first place to help their daughter with her English, while Ki-woo has taken the university entrance exams four times but still doesn't have a real degree. Because let's face it: the poor can't afford to compete with the rich. They can't hire private tutors. They can't afford to be nice, so they resort to lies and deceit. They resort to pushing other poor families out of the way to take their spot, because rich families can secure spots at the top with ease. We are trapped in a rat race, and in the movie, some of the characters literally get trapped inside an underground bunker because of the rat race.

The soundtrack of the film is amazing. When Ki-taek follows Mrs Park around as she does her shopping for the party and speaks to people over the phone to invite them over, there's happy music playing in the background. Yet at the same time, there's creepy music to show that Ki-taek is about to do something horrible. It's like we as the audience can sense that unhappy thoughts are buzzing about in his mind. I read online somewhere that Ki-taek is the parasite who finally ends up killing his host and I agree with that analysis too - it's tragic.

In the end, Ki-woo has brain surgery and wakes up laughing. He and his mum are convicted of fraud. His sister died from the stab wound and his father is wanted for murder. Ki-taek hides in the secret bunker which no one knows about except for his family, and steals food from the German family who moved into the house. The audience doesn't get to see what happens to the Park family, so it is assumed that they got on just fine, with savings and investments to fall back on despite the death of Mr Park.

Ki-woo lives with his mum and goes up a hill to look at the big house from above. He notices the lights flickering and it is his dad using Morse code. He manages to decipher his dad's message, who reveals that he has buried Moon-gwang's body in the yard and is doing fine. He is seen apologising to the pictures of Mr Park, which is similar to what Geun-sae did, and seems remorseful to have killed his boss. However, he will probably go down the same path as the previous parasite who took shelter in that underground bunker. I think he'll go mad living all by himself and carrying all that guilt. 

In the final scene, Ki-woo writes a letter to his father that he won't be able to send out. He reassures his father that he'll work hard and earn enough money to buy the house so that he can set his father free. We see Ki-woo's vision of this before the film goes back to the reality that Ki-woo still lives in the same semi-underground apartment with his mother.  I read online that the parasite in this movie is hope. The Kims were filled with hope and wanted to break free of poverty, so hope latches on and leaves them in a worse state than before, since Ki-jeong is dead and Ki-taek is wanted for murder. 

This analysis is spot on since the director himself mentioned that he didn't want to give the audience false hope. As the saying goes, "The rich get richer and the poor get poorer". In this capitalist society, we use meritocracy as an excuse not to help the poor, claiming that they are in poverty due to their own laziness. He wanted a film that reflected the honest truth: that social mobility is difficult and sometimes impossible. The filmmakers wanted to call the song at the end of the film "564 years" because they used Ki-woo's salary to do some calculations and estimated that that was the amount of time Ki-woo would need to be able to save up to buy that house. Basically, it is a pipe dream. A Sisyphean task. It is unattainable, it is impossible, and it is a fantasy. Ultimately, hope is a form of entrapment.