PARASITE : Tuesday 2nd July 2019.

I saw 'PARASITE' at my local independent theatre earlier this week, and fresh of his success with competition wins at both the Cannes Film Festival and the recent Sydney Film Festival, acclaimed South Korean Director and Screenwriter Bong Joon-ho here follows up his previous films that include 2006's 'The Host', 2013's 'Snowpiercer' and 2017's 'Okja'. The dark comedy film was released after its World Premier screening at Cannes in mid-May, in its native South Korea at the end of May, saw its release in Australia last week, and not in the USA until early October. The film has garnered largely universal critical praise and was made for about US$15M. The film has so far grossed US$77M.

Kim Ki-taek (Song Kang-ho), is an unemployed driver, who lives with his wife Choong-sook (Jang Hye-jin) and two college age children in a downtrodden basement apartment. The family are all unemployed and together they struggle to make ends meet by folding pizza boxes to earn a meagre living and survive from one day to the next. One day, Ki-woo (Choi Woo-shik), the son, is socialising with a friend who, whilst studying at University, is also employed as an English tutor for the daughter of a rich family. He is leaving to study abroad and suggests that Ki-woo should take his place as he's been studying English for the University entrance exam for the last four years unsuccessfully, and yet is more qualified that most of the other student 'pricks' in his year.

Ki-woo is subsequently interviewed at the extremely luxurious and spacious mansion of the Park family by the wife and mother of the household Yeon-kyo Park (Cho Yeo-jeong) to tutor one-on-one their daughter, Park Da-hye (Jung Ji-so). He gets the job and as he’s leaving the house observes the paintings of the young son of the family, Park Da-song (Jung Hyun-joon). Noticing that his artistic prowess should be nurtured, he suggests that the family employ his sister Ki-jeong (Park So-dam) as an art tutor - lying about her qualifications and photo-shopping fake University degree certificates to add to the authenticity, his family connection and even giving her the false name of Jessica.

In the fullness of time, both Dad and Mum also manage to infiltrate their way into the employ of the Park household. Ki-jeong designs a plot to get Mr. Park’s (Lee Sun-gyun) driver fired and replaced with her dad Ki-taek. Once Ki-taek is employed, he manages to get the final Kim family member, his wife, Choong-sook, employed as the housekeeper after getting the current one Gook Moon-gwang (Lee Jung-eun) fired by concocting a story that her allergic reaction to peach skin is in fact tuberculosis. In no time at all, the four family members have seen a complete reversal in their fortunes, are each in full time employment and being paid a pretty penny too, and are able to celebrate in moderate style.

One weekend, the Parks announce that they are leaving to camp in the countryside. They pack up the car and the four of them leave. Ki-taek and his family take full advantage of this opportunity to get comfortable in the Park household, get drunk on the expensive liquor, and treat the place as if it were their own. In a sudden downpour of thunder, lightning and near torrential rain the former housekeeper, Moon-gwang visits claiming that she came to retrieve something from the basement that she was unable to take when she left the house in haste. It is soon revealed that behind a wall unit in the basement is a secret doorway that leads down into a fully self contained bunker, and that the former housekeeper’s husband has been living down there for the past four years, hiding from the loan sharks he borrowed money from for a number of failed business ventures. A fight breaks out as Moon-gwang and her husband learn the truth about the Kims nefarious plans and the fact that they are all one family. Ki-taek and his family manage to confine the couple in the basement bunker, seriously wounding Moon-gwang in the process.

Amidst all this commotion, Mrs. Park calls Choong-sook to tell her to prepare a meal as the rain forced the cancellation of their camping weekend and they'll be returning to the house in eight minutes according to their in-car GPS. Ki-taek, Ki-jeong and Ki-woo all hurriedly hide in the house and as quickly as they can do their best to clean up their near drunken mess, almost getting caught several times, but finally manage to escape undetected later that night by hiding under a low level lounge table. The three successfully make their escape, in the pouring rain, down several steep stairways, through road tunnels and eventually back to their own poor neighbourhood. There they discover waist-high water and raw sewage has enveloped entire blocks of apartments in the neighbourhood, including their own semi-basement home. Ki-woo wades through the apartment to retrieve a large rock gifted to him earlier by his friend. The three, along with many other families made homeless, sleep in a gymnasium overnight.

The next day, Mrs. Park decides to throw an impromptu birthday party for her son and invites many of their friends, gets the caterers in, stage manages the whole lavish affair and also invites the whole Kim family to take part in the celebrations. Mrs. Park meanwhile remains completely ignorant to the fact that the Kim family are now homeless and near destitute, and have to accept hand-me-down clothes to be able to attend. Ki-woo, who feels responsible for the turn of events, goes down to the bunker, carrying with him the large rock and soon discovers the former housekeeper has died from her wounds. Her husband attacks Ki-woo and manages to get out of the basement and in the process knocks Ki-woo unconscious with the rock.

He takes a large kitchen knife, searches the small crowd for the Kims and attempts to stab them. He fatally wounds Ki-jeong. Park's young son faints from the scene unfolding right in front of him. Moon-gwang's husband then attacks Choong-sook. As Ki-taek is attending to his dying daughter and preparing to help his wife against the attacker, Mr. Park attempts to flee with his unconscious son, yelling at Ki-taek to throw him the car keys. Choong-sook manages to kill Moon-gwang's husband with a large metal barbecue skewer. Turning over the corpse to retrieve the car keys thrown by Ki-taek, Park pinches his nose, pulling back hastily from the smell of the dead man's body. Ki-taek previously overheard the Parks describing his own body odour as disgusting and invasive. Witnessing Mr. Park's recoil, Ki-taek stabs Park with the same kitchen knife, killing him.

Ki-taek escapes unnoticed by his own family members, the Park's, the quickly exiting guests, and any other loitering witnesses. He doubles back inside the house through the open garage door and goes into hiding in the bunker, taking the place of Moon-gwang’s husband, oblivious also to the next incoming family who purchased the property. Ki-woo, following brain surgery as a result of his injuries sustained is arrested along with Choong-sook but are found not guilty. In the months that follow, Ki-woo visits the house and spies on it from afar and one night notices the lights of the house are sending him a message in Morse Code from his father still living and surviving in the bunker.

In 'Parasite' Director and Writer Bong Joon-ho has crafted a grippingly watchable and blackly comedic suspense drama film that weaves effortlessly between opposite sides of the social tracks exploring the great divide between the haves and the have-nots, the inequality that exists between the rich and the poor, the meaning of social status and ultimately the greed, the envy and the tragedy that unfolds when these two unsuspecting families come together. The cast are all uniformly top rate, and despite its 130 minute run time, this film never leaves you wanting - instead lurching the viewer from one dramatic episode to a laugh out loud moment to unfolding family tragedy to surprise twists and turns and then back again. It's an unrelenting joy ride that proves that Bong Joon-ho is at the top of his game, and in this era of big bold Hollywood blockbusters it's refreshing to see this little South Korean foreign language film performing so well both commercially and critically.

'Parasite' merits four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard, from a possible five.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-