From the same director that gave us Okja and Snowpiercer.

Rating: 8/10 (22 March 2020)

For an average movie afficionado, I have to admit that while I liked Parasite, aside from the obvious I had to read up about the movie in order to fully appreciate the message it wanted to convey. On the surface, we know what's it about: the story about two families from extreme ends of the social ladder. The Parks with their high-tech mansion and luscious front yard that hides them from the outside world and the Kims with their sub-basement apartment and a window that allows them to look at their sad reality just enough to keep fighting and surviving. What is not obvious though is the why. What transpired in the movie is believable, but the why is what makes the difference. Maybe it's a cultural thing, where here in the Philippines as depicted in soap operas a million times over the Have-Nots are automatically nice people, hopeful that things will get better as long as they keep working hard. Meanwhile the Haves are depicted as calculating and manipulative, taking advantage of those that they can. In Parasite, it's the other way around. And this is very evident when the head of the Kim household commented that the Parks are rich but still nice. To which his wife countered, they are nice because they are rich. That money makes living easy therefore they are not as stressed, that's why they can afford and have the time to be nice. Which is true. I related to when she said that if she had what they had, she'd be kinder too. Of course it's not automatic though and there are always the exception to the rule.
Everyone were well-casted most especially Choi Woo-Shik (Fight for My Way) as the young Kim with whom the chain of events started. I mean I know I'm supposed to hate him but the combination of his cunning and naivete makes him appealing to me and even to the Parks. Cho Yeo-jeong as Mrs. Park was also a standout, playing a balance of a simple yet hands-on head of the household. You may also notice Lee Sun-kyun (The Coffee Prince) as Mr. Park and Park Seo-joon (Fight for My Way/ Secretary Kim) in a supporting role. The last character of note is the the Parks' house itself. It has a personality of it's own, commanding your attention whenever you're within it's premises.
Winning the 2019 Cannes Palm D'or award and besting 20 other foreign films, submitted to be South Korea's entry for Best Foreign film at the Oscars, a 99% Rotten Tomato rating and 8.5 in IMDB, you can not go wrong with this movie. It was well-written, the "infiltration" of the host by the parasites flowed naturally. The cinematography was beautiful, charming even in the squalor of the Kims' situation. For all that Parasite tried to do, at the end of the day the world appears the same, but it has definitely changed. For the better or worse, it will all depend on the next set of people assuming the roles of hosts and parasites.