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BEWARE: SPOILERS AHEAD

Recommendations

The last time I went to the movie theatre (only a week or so ago) I walked past a poster for the Korean movie Parasite. When I saw it I thought about my friend and how much she loved foreign movies. My game plan was to tell her as soon as I saw her that this film was in theatres near us. WITH SUBTITLES. It was too late for me. She had already seen it!

Instead, she recommended this movie to me! I trusted her recommendation since she had seen other movies from the same director Bong Joon Ho, such as Snowpiercer starring Chris Evans. At this point, I hadn’t seen a trailer and I went off of what I thought I knew the movie would be about.

My Expectations

When I read a title such as “Parasite”, my mind automatically attributes this to a zombie movie. You know what I’m talking about. The one where the story begins with a happy couple, a happy family, or a happy situation. All of a sudden, a questionable and mysterious infection starts spreading around the world. Then the individuals in that scenario are super uncomfortable and coughing blood or a weird substance. All the while this is happening you see a zombie lurking in the background. And then there’s a zombie bite that results in hysteria the entire movie. This doesn’t mean I wasn’t looking forward to this story. I LOVE ZOMBIE MOVIES! But the foreign film I was about to watch was not that.

“There’s a reason why Bong’s films usually end by restoring some version of the status quo, albeit with a hole in the middle.”

Indiewire

The Reveal

The movie starts with a poor family of four struggling to make ends meet. A tutoring opportunity is presented to the son of the family. He begins teaching English to the daughter of a rich couple and he starts to get paid well. He and his family formulate a plan that will get all of them hired by this family so they can combine their salaries and make more money than they ever have before. As they become more successful with this twisted strategy, they maintain the secret that they are all related. This represented the meaning of the word parasite. Just as a parasite lives in or on another organism and uses it for its own nourishment, this family is a parasite within the other family’s home!

My Review

I really liked this movie. I found that the storyline was deeper than I had anticipated. The characters were well developed and they had relationships with each other that created a bond that wasn’t easily broken. Their selfishness and non-existent moral codes were evident throughout the movie. Their ability to latch onto another more fortunate family was astonishing. I especially liked the two-tone nature that the story conveyed. The economic status of their family was the driving factor in being ruthless and unapologetic about their ways. The ending was especially revealing. I loved the way the director was able to end a story within five minutes of chaos and loss of control. The irony in the consequences that the characters faced thereafter was undeniably a masterpiece.

This is as far as I want to go with my breakdown of this movie. I encourage you all to see it! I think it will have that shock factor you may be looking for!