Gisaengchung, South Korea, 132 minutes
Director: Bong Joon Ho
Writers: Bong Joon Ho, Han Jin-won
Photography: Hong Kyung-pyo
Music: Jung Jae-il
Editor: Jinmo Yang
Cast: Song Kang-ho, Lee Sun-kyun, Cho Yeo-jeong, Choi Woo-sik, Park So-dam, Lee Jeong-eun, Jang Hye-jin
(spoilers) Director and cowriter Bong Joon Ho’s best movie, or my favorite anyway, is a comical but only slightly exaggerated meditation on class conflicts between rich and poor. It’s a picture where all Bong’s crazy dirty themes and styles come together organically and just right. On the poor side we have the Kim family: father Taek (Song Kang-ho, you’d know him, a Bong regular, seen in The Host, Memories of Murder, and Snowpiercer), mother Chung Sook (Jang Hye-jin), young adult and criminal mastermind daughter Jung (Park So-dam), and son Woo (Choi Woo-sik, Okja). They live in a basement apartment whose picture window looks out on an alley where people often come to urinate and/or fight. And then we have the rich Park family: father Dong-ik (Lee Sun-Kyun), mother Choi Yeo-jeong (Cho Yeo-jeong, a perfect ninny), adolescent daughter Da Hye (Jung Ji-so), and young son Da Song (Jung Hyun-jun). And, importantly, not to be missed, the Park family’s housekeeper Moon Gwang (Lee Jeong-eun, another Bong semiregular, seen in Mother and Okja).
It's a crowded ensemble cast which sorts out as the movie goes. First, Kim Woo finds an opportunity to tutor the Park’s daughter Da Hye, who is 14 or 15 and promptly develops a crush on him. With this inroad, the Kims scheme to take all the jobs in the Park household. Kim Jung sells herself as an art therapist for Da Song, who is an undisciplined 8 or 9 years old, going through an “American Indian” phase. He’s extremely hard to control, though Jung somehow manages it in about 15 minutes. We never see how, but Da Song is completely obedient to her. He probably has a crush on her too. From there Kim Taek gets the job as the family driver and, eventually, Chung Sook takes over as housekeeper. It’s all like a situation comedy, with a touch of slapstick and unlikely schemes to displace the original Park driver and housekeeper. Unlikely, but they work perfectly. They are often just funny, and the fast pace helps to hide the ridiculous plot holes.
(spoilers) Director and cowriter Bong Joon Ho’s best movie, or my favorite anyway, is a comical but only slightly exaggerated meditation on class conflicts between rich and poor. It’s a picture where all Bong’s crazy dirty themes and styles come together organically and just right. On the poor side we have the Kim family: father Taek (Song Kang-ho, you’d know him, a Bong regular, seen in The Host, Memories of Murder, and Snowpiercer), mother Chung Sook (Jang Hye-jin), young adult and criminal mastermind daughter Jung (Park So-dam), and son Woo (Choi Woo-sik, Okja). They live in a basement apartment whose picture window looks out on an alley where people often come to urinate and/or fight. And then we have the rich Park family: father Dong-ik (Lee Sun-Kyun), mother Choi Yeo-jeong (Cho Yeo-jeong, a perfect ninny), adolescent daughter Da Hye (Jung Ji-so), and young son Da Song (Jung Hyun-jun). And, importantly, not to be missed, the Park family’s housekeeper Moon Gwang (Lee Jeong-eun, another Bong semiregular, seen in Mother and Okja).
It's a crowded ensemble cast which sorts out as the movie goes. First, Kim Woo finds an opportunity to tutor the Park’s daughter Da Hye, who is 14 or 15 and promptly develops a crush on him. With this inroad, the Kims scheme to take all the jobs in the Park household. Kim Jung sells herself as an art therapist for Da Song, who is an undisciplined 8 or 9 years old, going through an “American Indian” phase. He’s extremely hard to control, though Jung somehow manages it in about 15 minutes. We never see how, but Da Song is completely obedient to her. He probably has a crush on her too. From there Kim Taek gets the job as the family driver and, eventually, Chung Sook takes over as housekeeper. It’s all like a situation comedy, with a touch of slapstick and unlikely schemes to displace the original Park driver and housekeeper. Unlikely, but they work perfectly. They are often just funny, and the fast pace helps to hide the ridiculous plot holes.
Shortly after the Kim family is fully installed in the Park household—the Parks have no idea they are related—the Parks leave the mansion to them for a family weekend camping trip. The mansion, by the way, is the notable work of a fictional architect, whose name is frequently dropped by the Parks. In their absence, Moon Gwang shows up at the front door late one night and wants in, says she was fired so quickly she wasn’t able to take all her things and she is there for the rest of them. At this point the picture spirals into mad episodes involving an underground bunker. “Many rich houses have secret bunkers, where you can hide in case North Korea attacks, or if creditors break in,” Moon Gwang explains.
This is a main point of Parasite (almost rhymes with “paradise”!)—not so much about North Korea, but about massively empowered creditors. It’s a little like Elon Musk’s present-day rampaging through the federal government (“moving fast and breaking things”). But in this case Moon Gwang is hiding her husband from more conventionally understood criminal loan sharks who have been seeking him for years, after his business failed and he reneged on his debts to them. Organized crime never sleeps in this world (or ours).
Bong has a good time sending up the rich folks, which I admit is something I usually enjoy (all the way back to My Man Godfrey and before). In a sex scene between the Parks, for example, he caresses her nipple and she reminds him to do it clockwise. Her hot sex talk is, “Buy me drugs! Buy me drugs!” It’s part of a great scene where Kim Taek is hiding under the couch (the Parks unexpectedly came home early from their camping trip) and the couple notices his smell and begin talking about it, trying to pin down what it is exactly while Kim Taek has to lie there and listen to it, humiliated.
A rainstorm moves through, a sequence with amazing images and a certain highlight of Parasite but more importantly an interesting and insightful class side-by-side. For the Parks, it’s just an unusually strong rainstorm. Da Song camps out overnight in a teepee in the backyard the next day is as normal as ever for them. In the afternoon they plan to have a genteel backyard gathering. At the same time the Kims’ apartment is completely flooded out by the storm almost to the ceilings. They lose everything and must shelter overnight in emergency conditions at a public building with many others similarly displaced. Their lives have completely changed.
Parasite is entertaining from start to finish. It starts out working sitcom types of material and gradually morphs into a suspense thriller with overtones of horror at an unfortunate incident at the backyard soiree at the Parks’ place. The view of class conflict is caustic and creeps into most of these scenes one way or another. This is capitalism, Bong seems to be proclaiming. And if it is exaggerated—and it is—all you have to do is call it “near-future” and you’re pretty much on the mark. In fact, looking around at things going on today, it’s probably fair to say that the “near-future” of Parasite may have been only six or seven years away. I get the feeling the tide it sees is still coming in.
This is a main point of Parasite (almost rhymes with “paradise”!)—not so much about North Korea, but about massively empowered creditors. It’s a little like Elon Musk’s present-day rampaging through the federal government (“moving fast and breaking things”). But in this case Moon Gwang is hiding her husband from more conventionally understood criminal loan sharks who have been seeking him for years, after his business failed and he reneged on his debts to them. Organized crime never sleeps in this world (or ours).
Bong has a good time sending up the rich folks, which I admit is something I usually enjoy (all the way back to My Man Godfrey and before). In a sex scene between the Parks, for example, he caresses her nipple and she reminds him to do it clockwise. Her hot sex talk is, “Buy me drugs! Buy me drugs!” It’s part of a great scene where Kim Taek is hiding under the couch (the Parks unexpectedly came home early from their camping trip) and the couple notices his smell and begin talking about it, trying to pin down what it is exactly while Kim Taek has to lie there and listen to it, humiliated.
A rainstorm moves through, a sequence with amazing images and a certain highlight of Parasite but more importantly an interesting and insightful class side-by-side. For the Parks, it’s just an unusually strong rainstorm. Da Song camps out overnight in a teepee in the backyard the next day is as normal as ever for them. In the afternoon they plan to have a genteel backyard gathering. At the same time the Kims’ apartment is completely flooded out by the storm almost to the ceilings. They lose everything and must shelter overnight in emergency conditions at a public building with many others similarly displaced. Their lives have completely changed.
Parasite is entertaining from start to finish. It starts out working sitcom types of material and gradually morphs into a suspense thriller with overtones of horror at an unfortunate incident at the backyard soiree at the Parks’ place. The view of class conflict is caustic and creeps into most of these scenes one way or another. This is capitalism, Bong seems to be proclaiming. And if it is exaggerated—and it is—all you have to do is call it “near-future” and you’re pretty much on the mark. In fact, looking around at things going on today, it’s probably fair to say that the “near-future” of Parasite may have been only six or seven years away. I get the feeling the tide it sees is still coming in.
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