Parasite (2019) film review

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My Rating *** Genre – Comedy/Horror/Satire Run Time – 140 Minutes. Certificate – 18 Country – Korea Oscars – 4 Awards – 300 Wins & 364 Nominations = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = So Parasite, the first ever all subtitled foreign film to win The Best Picture Oscar (2020). Anyone that watches a lot of movies will know that has been a long time coming as foreign films are generally a lot better than Hollywood ones these days, bearing in mind it’s always been a handful of western countries winning Oscars versus the rest of the world - all 217 countries on planet Earth. Director Bong Joon – Ho (Snow piercer,, Mother and The Host …etc…) won the films second Oscar for Best Direction , a very interesting South Korean director. Best Original Screenplay followed and the Best International Film Oscar perfunctory thereafter, 4 in total. It’s a clever comedy about South Korea’s class system and did an impressive £300 million dollars worldwide from its $20 million budget. ===Cast=== Lee Sun- kyun as Park Dong-Father of the Park family. Cho Yeo- jeong as Mother of the Park family. Song Kang- as Kim Ki-taek Choi Woo-shi as Ki-woo Park So-dam as Kim Ki-jung. Lee Jung-eun as Goo Moon-gwang Jang Hye-jin as Chung-ook. Park Myung-hoon as Oh Geun-sae. Jung Ji-so as Park Da-hye. Jung Hyeon-jun as Park Da-son. ===Plot==== The blue-collar Kim family of dad Ki-taek (Song Kang-ho) , mom Chung-sook (Cho Yeo-jeong), son Ki-woo (Choi Woo) and daughter Ki-jung (Park So-dam) all live in a small below street level apartment in Soul, South Korea, street views of peeing drunks, flooding drains and all manner of human life their everyday. They take low-paying temporary jobs to get buy, this week folding pizza boxes. University student Min-hyuk (Park Seo-joon) is visiting Ki-woo, giving the family a scholar's rock, meant to promise wealth and good fortune where it lays thereafter, a traditional gift. He is leaving to study abroad for a bit and suggests Ki-woo take over his job as an English tutor for the spoiled daughter of the wealthy Park family, Da-hye (Jung Ji-so). Ki pretends to be a student and gets the job at the Park family’s big house from Min’s recommendation. Not wanting to waste this opportunity the sneaky Kim family scheme away to remove the Park family staff one-by-one, replacing them with Kim family members, dad getting the chauffeur job, mom the housekeeper and Ki’s sister posing as "Jessica" to become an art therapist to the Parks' young son, Da-song (Jung Ji-so). The Park’s are oblivious to this family plotting and feel pleased they happened upon such competent new staff after their old staff let them down so badly all of a sudden. But when The Parks go a camping trip the Kim family discovers they are not the only ones that have a similar history with the Park family as their stay and subterfuge unwinds spectacularly. ===Results=== I always watch the Best Film Oscar. Some are dull, Babel, some are great fun, Slumdog, and so on. Parasite is a good movie and probably not the best movie of the year but still well worth a watch. Korean movies are flying right now and after big success in the horror genre they are expanding into the western market appeal. 1917 ran it close in 2020, a more predictable epic Oscar style movie, but Parasite worth the win for being so original. The class war is explored well here although the Kim family come across a bit smarter than your average blue-collar chop stick using Korean family so slightly takes the edge off the tension there. But the arguments are all there, including the aroma of working - class people, a clever observation - if you like. Its very well written and a unique premise and almost certainly an American version to follow five years from now. The acting is comic with good pathos and the situations clever and cutting on Korean life although I have no clue about the Korean class structure. If it’s anything like the British one it sucks. Well worth a watch even if you don’t like subtitles and perhaps time you did watch more subtitled movies. The 140 minutes fly by, a smart intelligent comedy of manners not to be missed. ===RATINGS=== Imdb.com 8.6/10.0 (votes) Rottentomatos.com 98% –critic’s approval Metacritic.com – critic’s approval ===Trailer=== https://www.imdb.com/video/vi1015463705?playlistId=tt6751668&ref_=tt_ov_vi