Parasite, seven years later
Bong Joon-ho's film is even sharper now — and its big turn still works on a second watch.
Salah Edine · 1 min readParasite (2019)
When Parasite won the Palme d'Or in 2019 and then Best Picture at the Oscars — the first film not in English to do it — it was easy to call it a phenomenon and move on. Seven years later, it doesn't feel like a moment. It feels like a classic.
The set-up (no spoilers)
The Kim family live in a cramped semi-basement flat. When the son, Ki-woo, gets a job tutoring the daughter of the wealthy Park family, the Kims see a way in — and one by one, they become the Parks' tutor, art therapist, driver and housekeeper.
For its first hour, Parasite plays like a con-artist comedy. It's quick, funny and full of small cruelties on both sides. Bong Joon-ho films the Parks' house like a stage, and every staircase matters.
The turn
On a stormy night, with the Parks away, the old housekeeper Moon-gwang rings the bell. She has come back for something in the basement — and it turns out to be her husband, Geun-sae, who has been living in a hidden bunker under the house for years.
From that moment the film stops being about one poor family fooling one rich one. It becomes about two poor families fighting each other for the space underneath — while the people upstairs never notice either of them.
Why it lasts
On a second watch you see how carefully every step down — stairs, streets, the flooded flat — has been placed. Parasite is a film about who lives above and who lives below, and it never once has to say so.
Our verdict: still one of the best films of the century so far.
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Film and TV information and images from TMDB. Streaming data by JustWatch.