A family of con artists infiltrate the home of a rich household in Parasite. Kim Ki-taek (Song Kang-ho) lives in a rundown basement apartment with his wife Chung-sook (Chang Hyae-jin) and two kids Ki-jung (Park So-dam) and Ki-woo (Choi Woo-shik). An opportunity arises when Ki-woo, going under the alias Kevin, cons his way into the job as a tutor for Park Da-hye (Jung Ziso), the daughter of wealthy couple Park Dong-ik (Sun-kyun Lee) and Park Yeon-kyo (Yeo-jeong Jo), who live in an exquisite mansion. One by one, the other members of the Kim family find jobs with the parks and gets a taste of the rich lifestyle.
After making a couple of English-language films with Snowpiercer and Okja, director Bong Joon-ho returns home to South Korean to direct this dark comedy about class struggle. I went into Parasite knowing next to nothing about the story and I believe that is the best way to experience the film. All you really need to know about Parasite is that it is a film about two families, one poor and one rich. The film ends up being quite an experience that crosses into different genres and turns out having much heavier themes that we are initially lead to believe. Altogether, Parasite is a film that I very much recommend.
TIFF19 screenings of Parasite
