Cho Yeo - jeong and Song Kang - ho inParasiteNeon / Neon
Five years after it took the Cannes Film Festival , the Academy Awards , and the global box office by storm , Parasiteis back on the freehanded screen . That ’s a jolly short amount of time to commemorate with an anniversary rerelease . Then again , it ’s been alongfive eld , has n’t it ? Oh , how the world has change since the Alcyone day of 2019 — “ the last f***ing year for cinema , ” to quoteQuentin Tarantino , whoseOnce Upon a Time … in Hollywoodpremiered within hours of Bong Joon - ho ’s darkly clever class - war romp . In retrospect , Parasitewinning Best Picture on Oscar night a few months later really did palpate like the net joyous surprise of an old epoch — a last pant before COVID close theaters and shift everything .
look on the photographic film today , via its currentIMAXvictory lap covering or from the puff of your own home , actually emphasizes the ways thingshaven’tchanged so much these past five years . Or maybe it ’s just that the tensions and resentmentsParasitedramatized back then have in full exploded to the surface of the culture , as sure as shooting as they simmer to a boil in the flood tide of the movie . Like Mr. Kim ( Song Kang - ho ) , hoi polloi are feed up . Does his shocking act of violence look so shameful these day ? You might intend dead of a real , more premeditate offense that just conjure the medium into a delirium and sent a jolt of understanding through the public — a execution with a need so clear , the grampus etched it on the bullets .
Cho Yeo-jeong and Song Kang-ho inParasiteNeon / Neon
Yes , the meter is right for aParasiteencore . It ’s very much a movie for the instant , a tale of furore and desperation fit for our post - Luigi Mangioneworld . At the same time , there ’s no misidentify this South Korean award - winner — more acclaimed , perhaps , than any film that ’s come in its wake — for a bare eat - the - rich parable . Not with Bong at the rein . The bold slipperiness of his demented take on upstairs - downstairs drama is what elevates it beyond bare opportuneness .
The deed of conveyance alone is provocative in its potential double meaning . Who are the parasites in this story of a needy family , the Kims , that latches itself to the paysheet pap of a moneyed fellowship , the Parks ? It ’s less a john question than a Rorschach trial . Parasite ’s huge success the public overcouldreflect a sure universal frustration , the kind that the murder of a CEO just illuminated like a bleak light . Or it could be chalked up to people seeing what they want to see in the master - servant relationship that develops between these economically entwine clans . To make headway the top prize on Hollywood ’s freehanded dark , the filmhadto have spoken to people who saw a sort of repugnance movie about the dangers of open your house to the assistance .
Bong leaves us to assort through our prejudice . He ’s too shrewd a dramatist to reduce his lineament to emblem of their societal station — to divide our fellow feeling by tax wall bracket alone . The Parks are not cartoon fatty Caterpillar . They are clueless and easy manipulated , in the cause of Mrs. Park ( Cho Yeo - jeong ) , or snobbishly condescending , in the case of Mr. Park ( Lee Sun - kyun ) , who prefers those he lease regard professional boundary and not “ cross the line . ” Their most odious offense is rudely fixating on odor . They are awful in the casual , everyday way that the wealthy can be . They are recognizably human , not blatant guillotine fodder .
Likewise , the Kims are not cardboard saints — the stately workings - class heroes a more self - righteous parable might position upon a pedestal . They are , at prison term , bluntly and uproariously underhand . They consist and steal and screw over other people for a shot at the cash the Parks thoughtlessly fling on luxury and public lavatory and puppet comforts . Parasitesays that do-or-die time call for desperate measure . Every transgression in the movie is a scramble to survive . “ Money is an iron , ” as Mrs. Kim ( Jang Hye - jin ) enjoin . It smooths out the difficulties of life — and with them , the challenges to our moral range .
No one wide familiar with Bong ’s work could confuseParasitefor a pro - elect cautionary tale , even if its narrative wickedly toys with theSaltburn - alike fears of a prevail stratum paranoiac that the Great Unwashed are amount for them . Rarely one for didactic screed , the writer - director has pass most of his vocation smuggling his class politics onto screens under cover of rollicking musical style scenario . TakeThe Host , which pillory American imperialism and embodied disregard for public safety in the form of a primo kaiju movie of originalGojiravintage . OrSnowpiercer , which take late - stage capitalist economy to its consistent endpoint , with all that remain of civilisation stuffed aboard a railroad train endlessly loop a ravaged planet . It ’s dress like a social ladder turned on its side , the poor in the back , the rich in the front .
Parasiteflips that hierarchical structure vertically again : Here , privilege is a affair of altitude — a base established right from the subterranean opening shot . The film is one of Bong ’s most strictly entertain Trojan horses . That , maybe more than its politics , might calculate for its endure popularity and for its ability to ruin the terminology barriers that traditionally keep celluloid not in English off the box - office chart and out of the Academy ’s winner circle . For a while , it almost plays like anOcean ’s Eleven - styleheist moviewhere the “ score ” is paying usage . And the kink arrive with dizzying force , Bong open his satiric scenario up into the land of perverse farce ( no doors are thrash , but tables are scurried under ) and downright Hitchcockian rush . Parasiteremains about as fun as any movie this ultimately , witheringly downbeat can be .
The Parks are n’t the actual baddie of the film . They ’re but a symptom of an unjust organization . Capitalism is a zero sum game inParasite . It keeps the 99 % divide , fight back over the same crumbs , scrambling for the same bantam wedge of the Proto-Indo European . Most of the violence in the pic is between the Kims and the family line of the housekeeper ( Lee Jung - eun ) they muscle out of a task . Only in the orgasm , when all hell break loose at that party , do the Parks feel any kind of reckoning . And it ’s difficult to call that a victory , regardless of where your sympathies consist . After all , Mr. Kim ’s action do n’t even radicalize his Word , Ki - woo ( Choi Woo - shik ) , who remains score by a phantasy of upward mobility , dreaming of keeping up with the Joneses ( or Parks ) .
Since 2019,Parasite ’s finger has n’t left the pulse of an economically lopsided existence . The Kims do n’t see the fully grown picture of their misadventure — namely , that they ’re trying to win a manipulate biz on an uneven playacting arena , and that they ’re trapped in a system designed to keep them literally and figuratively down . But the audience might see that picture more distinctly than ever . After all , Parasitehas returned to theatre at a time when newsfeeds are fill up with day-after-day reminder of the unjust disparity of life under capitalism . It remain a crazed crowdpleaser for an exploited reality , building swashbuckler complication around its social conscience … never listen the inconvenient accuracy that every ticket bought arrange a few excess dollar in the sac of the Friedkins , a mob whose wealth makes the Parks look like the Kims .
All that said , you have to wonder if the pointedly unsubtleParasitemight really be a little too subtle for 2025 . In a cardinal scene , the Kims sit around , drinking the Park family ’s John Barleycorn , enjoying the mirage of a life within the menage they assist . “ She ’s robust , but still courteous , ” Mr. Kim say of his employer , to which his married woman respond , with a snort : “ She ’s productive , thereforeshe ’s dainty . ” in good order now , though , the mask of niceness the obscenely monied often wear has slip . As these words are write , and maybe as you read them , the world ’s richest man is waging war on the mediate and downhearted year in broad daylight — unlawfully destroying public table service , ache American workers to trace his own pockets , thrash about cancer enquiry for kids . Him and his kind are monsters too broad for the broadest of satires , the form Bong would be embarrassed to put in a movie . They ’re parasite in the truest sentiency .
