#and da-hye in the first half was fantastic

[witchofanguish]

okay I feel like something must have gotten chopped short here because that was ended off completely pro forma. Really good art, mediocre story.

[dabatcavebyhonie]

Parasite- I have confusion

*Warning TV family this has spoilers but it’s a detailed especially due to their Movie wins! So sit back and enjoy.”

What a trip this movie was. I say it was like going down a rabbit hole filled with lies and aristocratic behavior. Parasite had me “shook”. I was quaking in my boots. Honestly it was a pure masterpiece. I was on the edge of my seat the entire movie. So I’ll break down the movies into three pieces: 

Twisted, but okay,  Bro stop,  and whaaaaa

“It's funny how the colors of the real world only seem really real when you watch them on a screen.”

― anthony burgess, A Clockwork Orange

Twisted but okay

So I’m used to watching subtitled films but boy, do they talk in this movie. We open to see a messy shack of a house in the slums of Seoul, South Korea. Theywork cheap odd jobs to pay for the rent of their house which gets peed on and wrecked by drunks at night. The beginning makes it seem like such an innocent movie. 

Boy was I wrong.

  Min  gives him a gift. A rock that is supposed to give  the owner good luck. The madness starts with Ki-woo’s friend, Min comes and tells him that he’s studying abroad in America so he needs Ki-woo to tudor a girl in english for exams.  But he’s not even in college. So Ki-woo tells his sister, Ki-Jung, to make him a fake certification that he’s in college and in fact, give him a new name. At this point all I can think is “shady but alright,” until when he starts tutoring Park Da-Hye and then tells the matriarchs of the Parks  that he knows an art therapist called Jessica. We flash to the next day to see Ki-Jung dressed up and practicing the lie that she in fact is an Art therapist. Hmm not morally sound….  

We then see her getting a ride home from The current schaufer…..oh no… what is she about to do?

You start to realize how messed up this family within The first 40 minutes of this long movie.  They’re manipulating the Park family. By the end of this first half of the movie every single member has entwined themselves in this family.  I thought that Ki-Woo was a fantastic mastermind until we made it to the second half. 

Bro Stop

So, update in the storyline, Ki-woo has become involved with Park Da-Hye and The Kim’s have basically become the help of the Parks without the Parks even understanding. In fact, when the Parks go on a camping trip for Park Da-song’s  The Kim family basically move in and get drunk. They basically celebrate being a manipulative family. Until one of the old staff showed up. The mother, Chung-sook , is told by the old housekeeper, Moon-kwang, that she left something in the house since she was fired so Quickly. Feeling guilty,  she lets Moon-kwang in and everyone hides but follows Moon-kwang. 

Oh my…

She walks down to the pantry filled with canned food. Chung-sook walks in to see her pushing against a shelf. When it suddenly budges….. She reveals an underground house. 

Guys I was like “Who wrote this movie?”. 

We see her husband who is absolutely obsessed with Mr.Park. in a very creepy way. In fact, he bangs his head on these buttons to light Mr.Park’s way. Then Geun-sae, Moon-kwang’s husband is low-key creepy. Apparently, they have lived in this underground bunker since the previous owners and actually are hiding from land sharks. Then Chung-sook demands her to leave but the rest of her family tumbles down the  stairs. 

Oh dear…

Without their knowing Moon-kwang records them calling each other dad, and mom. Moon-kwang black mails them. Let’s just say that wasn’t pleasing to them so they horribly beat up Geun-sae and Moon-kwang. Until Chung-sook gets a call that the Parks are rained out and she needs to get the food ready. The Kim family scrambles to clean up and they hide while locking Geun-sae and Moon-kwang in the basement. 

This is the moment when I tell them “bro stop…”

The Kims hide. The Parks go home. They hide and the last phase connects the whole movie together. 

Whaaaa

The little Da-song goes outside in the pouring rain to go camping. We learn that he’s actually reading Geun-sae’s morris code. And he learns of the manipulation of the Kims. Back inside, The Park parents supervise Da-song. And start talking about their staff. They say that they all smell bad. Like a lower class smell. And say it’s especially Ki-taek Kim, the father. Mr. Kim becomes extremely hurt by this. 

When all of the Parks are asleep, the kims sneak out. It was raining;so much that the lower homes and sub-apartements were flooding. This includes theirs. The bathroom overflows their whole life floats away as they try to fill it out. Ki-Woo  finds the rock that his friend gave him and doesn’t let go of it. The family minus Chung-sook  slept in an emergency shelter. 

Next day the Parks decide to have a party for Da-song. During this time we watch them support The Parks and bend to their every need without the Parks even knowing of them losing their home. We watch them wrinkle their nose from the smell of Ki-aek Kim and how hurt he looks from their comments. Then the party starts. 

Everyone in their bougie chiffon dresses and fancy suits move and act unrealistically. For an impromptu party we’re surprised to see how clean and organized it looks. It gives me  heavy Meteor Garden vibes. It was so elegant in comparison to the messy lives of the Kims. We see the Parks control the kims like dolls telling them what to do and how to  dress until Ki-Jung dressed in all of her elegance walks out with the cake. We see Geun-sae escape by bludgeoning Ki-Woo with the rock he’s been carrying  and runs out of the house to the party. Geun-sae stabs Ki-jung and she drops to the floor. The Kims rush to see their family on the floor covered in blood. But suddenly when Da-song starts to seize the Parks asks Ki-aek Kim for the keys to take Da-song to the hospital not Ki-jung dying on the ground. The twisted irony of this moment leads to Mr.Kim throwinging the Keys which land next to Geun-Sae and Mrs.KIm who are fighting. Finally, She stabs Geun-sae with a meat skewer and he dies. With disgust Mr.Park grabs the keys and twists his face from Guen-sae’s smell.

 With anger Mr.Kim stabs and kills Mr.Park. Then Mr.Kim disappears. They don’t know where he is but we do. In the basement where Geun-sae was. Because Ki-woo wants to save his dad he gains enough money to  buy the garden house and set his father free.

Conclusion

Overall this movie is a crazy mind warp and deserves every award. I recommend everyone to watch it cause it makes you think about social structures. Originally, I thought that this was about the poor preying on the rich due to them being a parasite controlling and sinking their teeth into the Park’s life. 

However, we see in the third act that the rich also use and abuse the poor. The Parks didn’t really care about their workers, not even the ones before. Instead of helping the rich housekeeper due to her illness, Mrs.Park kicked Moon-kwang to the curb. Now, when “Jessica “ bled out on the grass they couldn’t care less. Instead of thinking this thriller is about the Kim family being Parasites, it’s more of a twisted symbiotic relationship.