The Kim family lives in a semi-basement and struggles to keep food on the table. Now he leads a pleasant life in the mansion with his wife Yeon-Kyo and two children. Challenge finding a way out of family's misfortune. Parasite essays are academic essays for citation. The Analysis of the Oscar-Winning Movie: Parasite Parasite is a 2019 South Korean black comedy thriller movie directed by Bong Joon-ho and is the first film with a non-English script to win Best Picture at the Oscars in 2020. The script for "Parasite" will get a ton of attention as it's one of those clever twisting and turning tales for which the screenwriter gets the most credit (Bong and Han Jin-won, in this case), but this is very much an exercise in visual language that reaffirms Bong as a master.Working with the incredible cinematographer Kyung-pyo Hong ("Burning," "Snowpiercer") and an A-list . He fatally wounds Ki-jeong, stabbing her through the chest as the party guests erupt into panic and scatter. For some Parasite movie analysis straight from the auteur himself, check out this scene breakdown from Bong Joon-ho. However, she has no ill intentions, and can even be credited for saving Ki-woo after he was attacked by Moon-kwangs husband. Ki-taek may be out of work, but he's no dummy. After struggling to make ends meet folding pizza boxes for a local pizza restaurant, the Kims are visited by one of Ki-woo's wealthier friends, Min-hyuk, who offers to refer him to a job tutoring for a wealthy family, the Parks. Like the Park family's young boy, Ki-Woo used to be a Scout as a child. Interests scouting. Personality driven and flexible. Very soon, the Kims also manage to displace the longstanding housekeeper to make room for Mrs Kim to join the operation. RELATED: The 10 Worst Family Movies Of All Time, Ranked. A fight breaks out in the living room of the house, and the Kims manage to get Moon-gwang and her husband down into the bunker, but suddenly, Mrs. Park calls and tells Chung-sook that they are heading home after the campgrounds flooded from a rainstorm. The film is packed with social commentary, thrilling moments, and plenty of meaty writing worthy of a full Parasite movie analysis. This simple, comedic entry sets up the level of poverty that the Kim family faces. Min-hyuk offers Ki-woo his tutoring job while he's away noting that the family of the girl he tutors is not necessarily the best judge of character. The real deception is carried out by the Kims, and it works flawlessly. Parasite broke a number of financial records as well, including the highest foreign film opening weekend of all time for the UK box office, and a number of records with the Indie Box Office. Mrs Kim jokingly taunts Mr Kim, comparing him to a cockroach that would run and hide at the first sign of danger. account. And every single element of the film from the scholars stone, to the architecture of the homes, to the very names of the families all contribute to this central theme. We even learn that Moon-kwangs husband, like Mr Kim, also had a failed business venture in a cake shop. It is somehow, and Im still not even really sure how, both joyous and depressing at the same time. Hes skewered classicism in all of his films to some degree. When Da-song wants to sleep in a tent outside, Mr. and Mrs. Park sleep on the couch to watch over him. The Kims soon settle into their comfortable new life working for the Parks. Ki-jung begins working for the parks under the guise of an art-therapy teacher. Official Screenwriting Blog of The Black List. Dong-ik isn't a terrible guy, but he isn't a great one either. She returns to the house to check on her husband, who is living in a secret subterranean bunker. in a middle-class home that was neither poor nor terribly wealthy. Whats their function? Suddenly, the Kims fall down the stairs of the bunker in a pile, after listening in on the conversation. Parasite Genre Shift Subscribe on YouTube Mr Park (Lee Sun-gyun) is clever enough to question that fact that leaving panties behind in a car is not something normal, even in the throes of forbidden fornication. After Chung-sook stabs Geun-sae with a meat skewer, Mr. Park grabs the keys from under him, but in the process, scowls at Geun-sae's smell. Dont buy eggs. Ki-woo makes some rather poor choices, too, though. Can the poor really just step into the world of the rich? A major plot driving interaction arrives in the form of Ki-woos friend, who gifts an ornamental rock to the Kim family that can supposedly deliver wealth, and also offers Ki-woo his job as an English tutor for the Park familys daughter as hes travelling overseas. Has also tied the record with Walt Disney for most Oscars awarded to an individual at a single ceremony. Our daily schedule: Monday: Scene-By-Scene BreakdownTuesday: PlotWednesday: CharactersThursday: ThemesFriday: DialogueSaturday: Takeaways. Hes going to get his whole family into this house. Ki-jung gets the job after impressing Mrs. Park with some pseudo insights about psychology, and Mrs. Park hires her as both a tutor and an art therapist. It also makes perfect sense to me that a family would have the same smell as they live in the same house and use the same soaps and detergents. The most interesting part of this dynamic film is the variety of characters. Copyright 1999 - 2023 GradeSaver LLC. Parasite Summary The film starts with the Kim family, a South Korean family struggling with poverty in a poor neighborhood in an unnamed city. Parasite director Bong Joon-ho became the first South Korean filmmaker to win best director at the academy awards. Parasite concludes where it begins, in the semi-basement apartment. Elevation clearly equates to status; the parks have a multi-level home at the top of the hill while the Kims live below street level in a semi-basement, and the surprise 3rd party lives deep underground in a sub-basement. The emotionally-affecting resonance of the ending is the perfect cap to the wonderfully layered social commentary spread throughout the film. Over the course of a few pulse-quickening scenes, and unbeknown to the Parks, Chung-sook critically injures Moon-gwang by pushing her down the stairs, and Ki-taek traps Geun-se in the bunker. Through the analysis of the audio-visual language of the movie, this article starts with the storytelling of Parasite, enumerates and analyses the elements that appear in the movie to reflect the gap between the rich and poor. as an art student at a middle-class family. He is obsessed with keeping his employees controlled and hates nothing more than when one of his charges "crosses the line." At the start of the film, we are introduced to the Kims, a family struggling to live under impoverished conditions. Armed with a knife, he makes a beeline for the first member of the Kim family he can see Ki-jeong, as shes delivering Da-songs birthday cake to him on the lawn. Ki-taek, who acted upon his anger, still remains beneath another rich family. Small things, such as the Kim family opening their windows as their neighbourhood is fumigated in order to rid their own apartment of pests, or drunkards that liked to piss on their basement windows at night, were double-edged jokes that combined absurdist humour with sly details of the familys desperation and socio-economic plight. Staircases are an evocative symbol in Bong Joon Hos Parasite, a biting drama critics have named one of the years best films. The wide panning shots do great in conveying a sense of space in the large Park residence, and sequence shots make the viewer feel as though they are there with the characters, watching their lives unfold. Cockroaches and insects are seen around the house, and at some point, Mr Kim even flicks a stink bug off the table, foreshadowing a larger plot point further on. He notices the flickering light and deciphers a coded message from his father. Maybe its the crazy eyes, the receding hairline, the fact that he manually presses buttons on the bunker wall to turn on individual lights on the entrance staircase into the house (to show his gratitude towards Mr Park for providing for him, but giving the Parks the impression that the lights at the staircase were always sensor lights), or just plainly the fact that hes a fucking mole person hiding out in someones house. At some points, it seemed that the music didnt match the situation, such as instilling fear or anxiety in the listener when there was really nothing to worry about at the moment, but the sense of foreboding always pays off later in the film. They didn't fold the Pizza boxes correctly. Ki-woo, the son, is gifted a scholars stone or suseok by a friend and given a recommendation for a tutoring job with a wealthy family. With a run-time of 2hrs 15mins that you would barely notice due to the amazing pacing of the film, the film moves seamlessly through its different genres and settings without missing a beat. Parasite dominated the Academy Award, including a Best Picture win. The local pizza shop informs the Kims that one in four of the pizza boxes they folded were faulty and could not be used. He stands in the woods near the Parks' house, which has been bought by Germans, and observes that the censor light is turning on and off in a patternMorse Code. As the end credits began to roll, the tension in the cinema was palpable. But theres this: In a screenplay, characters exist for a reason. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Parasite by Bong Joon-ho. These steps are involved in many of the films pivotal moments, including those in the gruesome final act. Im someone who doesnt mind spoilers, but even I wouldnt wish the spoilers on my worse enemy. The focus of this bi-weekly series is a deep structural and thematic analysis of each script we read. The lawn itself is huge, and is the first thing that any visitor sees. The Question and Answer section for Parasite is a great Grew up in a middle-class home that was neither poor nor terribly wealthy. The film's setup has a poor family, the Kims, infiltrating the lives of a wealthy family, the . The family also laments that the rich are only nice because money is like an iron it irons out all the creases in your life, making life smooth and untainted. Before long, mom and dad are in the Park house too, and it seems like everything is going perfectly for the Kim family. The second half of Parasite is one of the most daring things Ive seen in years narratively. That he also manages to go into hiding in the Park's basement as did Geun-sae is pretty impressive given all the people that had to be going in and out of the house. On to the in-depth analysis! I left the cinema around 2am reeling and shookt, and was still desperately Googling and researching for the films reviews and analyses two hours later. Ki-jung is Ki-woo's sister, a smart and tough young woman who does not suffer fools. 5 Parasite Character Analysis (Avoiding Spoilers) Living in a smelly semi-basement located in the slums of Seoul, South Korea. Yeon-gyo is a well-meaning mother and wife, but she's rather gullible. These two powerhouse awards ceremonies rarely overlap and are comprised of entirely different audiences and judges and with entirely different viewing criteria and preferences. To explain Parasites ending, we turn to the directors own words: You know and I know - we all know that this kid isn't going to be able to buy that house. Moon-kwangs husband, enraged at the Kim family for leaving Moon-kwang for dead, attacks Ki-woo by strangling him and striking him in the head with the very fortune rock that Ki-woo brought. However, things went downhill from there. She calls Chung-sook sister, at which the Kims scoff. Ki-woo wakes up in the hospital and learns about what happens. The operatic music and effects when Mrs Park spotted Moon-kwang coughing into a tissue as she ascends the stairs into the house. Bong Joon-ho 's masterful film Parasite is a wicked and brutal satire about wealth disparity. One set of stairs descends to the central Kim familys dingy semi-basement apartment in modern-day Seoul, while another ascends to the front door of the ultrawealthy Park family, for whom the cash-strapped Kims work. Watching the poor family leave their cramped semi-basement home to overtake the. Of the Kim family members, she is the most talented scammer. Mr Parks arrogance and distaste for the smell becomes his downfall. This vertical comment on status is illustrated cleanly in this alternate poster for the film, without spoiling the sub-basement reveal. In a trance-like state as his daughter is bleeding out on the ground, Mr Kim is triggered by Mr Parks balking at the stench and fatally stabs him in the chest before running out the house. And then everything changes. Not affiliated with Harvard College. She is brusque and unsentimental like her daughter, toughened by life in poverty. characters are most like you. I have so much to say about this film that I was practically overflowing with thoughts for a good 24 hours after watching it. Acting on impulse, Ki-woo heads to a mountain near the house the Parks have since vacated, and which now belongs to a rich German family. At the party, Ki-woo decides to head back down into the basement with the fortune rock, likely intending to end Moon-kwang and her husbands lives. The same Time a best Picture win Disney for most Oscars awarded to an individual at a ceremony. His films to some degree, Ranked a family struggling to live under impoverished conditions, including a Picture! 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