Spoiler Alert!
Parasite, directed by Bong Joon ho is an Oscar-winning movie set in South Korea that dwells on the topic of discrimination and the wide gap in the living standards of different classes of people.
A parallel comparison is drawn between the lives of the rich couple — Yen Kyo and Min with their daughter Da-Hye and son, Da song, and a poor couple, Kim ki Taek and Choong Sook with their children Ki-Jung and Ki-woo.
Mr. Min is a rich CEO and has a grand mansion to call home, while Kim lives in a semi-underground basement. One of the iconic dialogues of the movie, “If I were as rich as her, I’d be nice too, heck I’d be nicer,” sums up the movie theme. Money smoothes all creases, the poor worry about dealing with the many problems every day that the rich aren’t even aware of.
While the rich family rejoices in the rain, Kim’s family is wrecked homeless by the same weather. Ki-woo gets a job in Min’s home under a false identity, and his entire family follows suit. In a hilarious turn of events, the poor eventually reclaim the wealth to live a sustained life. However, that dream is quickly cut short as another low-income family-driven crazy by debts and imprisonment announces its arrival out of the blue.
The movie transcends entertainment to pose a serious question to society and its capitalist way of living that, as Karl Marx pointed out, is making the rich richer. At the same time, the poor serve the very system that abuses it. Parasite questions the society on a deeper level – the kind of movie that marks an era – the shift to meaningful cinema.