parasite character analysis

Im sure we all notice that the people around us have their own unique smells, but our minds and senses are bogged down with so much information as adults that we tend to dismiss tiny details like this. Ki-jeong, Ki-woos sister, is the main brain behind the scam operation that brings in the rest of her family into the Park residence. Ki-woo as the Park daughters English tutor, Ki-jeong as the Park sons art tutor/therapist, Mr Kim as the familys chauffeur, and Mrs Kim as the housekeeper. He takes a liking to Ki-jeong and trusts her, but unjustifiably suffers the most at the hands of Moon-kwangs family and the Kim family, suffering two seizures resulting from shock. Armed with a knife, he makes a beeline for the first member of the Kim family he can see Ki-jeong, as shes delivering Da-songs birthday cake to him on the lawn. capture a large family group in a single frame. After getting referred for a tutoring gig, he orchestrates a plan in which his whole family begins working for the same wealthy family. It perfectly encapsulated each moment of the film, whether it was absurdist humour, dark humour, escalating tension, or setting the tone for future revelations. You would think that maybe before you hire someone else, you stop to think if maybe your household staff is disappearing faster than usual? Realizing that they are all related, Moon-gwang takes an incriminating video of them and threatens to send it to the Parks. If you are interested in reading through the rest of the script, you can find it below. Please enable Javascript and hit the button below! For years the country has been producing some of the finest films and directors in the world of cinema, but Parasite has crossed new milestones in terms of global impact. Now that he is both her tutor and her boyfriend, he dreams of an affluent future as her husband. When Ki-woo goes into the basement, Geun-sae attacks him and bludgeons him in the head with the rock. That he also manages to go into hiding in the Park's basement as did Geun-sae is pretty impressive given all the people that had to be going in and out of the house. On that fateful day, he ran from the backyard with blood on his hands not Mr. Parks, as one might assume, but his own daughters. If he is ever caught, he may suffer the death penalty for committing a murder. Geun-se worshiped Mr. Park and his professional success but continued to live beneath him. He has held a bunch of different jobs, working as a valet and at a bakery, but struggles to provide for his family. This review was filed from the Toronto International Film Festival on September 7th. When you move up the ladder, someone else has to be displaced. To take advantage of all of CharacTours features, you need your own personal Ki-woo pens a letter to his father, fantasizing about his plan to go to college, secure a well-paying job and buy the Parks'. Be sure to watch our video essay on the scene for more detail and deeper Parasite analysis. Mr Park runs over to Moon-kwangs husband and pushes his body aside to retrieve the car key, but not before he wrinkles his nose at the smell that Moon-kwangs husband exudes. Although it does not seem likely, Ki-Woo claims he will get admission into an elite university and marry Da-Hye. The characters are a reason for the success and we've ranked how smart they are. For some Parasite movie analysis straight from the auteur himself, check out this scene breakdown from Bong Joon-ho. One set of stairs descends to the central Kim familys dingy semi-basement apartment in modern-day Seoul, while another ascends to the front door of the ultrawealthy Park family, for whom the cash-strapped Kims work. The Kims get trapped in the house, hiding under the coffee table when the Parks arrive home. He even tells Ki-woo that the best plan is to have no plan, because then you will never be disappointed when the plan doesnt play out the way you wanted it. The Kim father and children quickly take cover as Mrs Kim decides to let Moon-kwang in. So how can you break put from the pack and get your idea onto the small screen? While attending a birthday party for the Parks young son, Da-song (Jung Hyeon Jun), Ki-woo heads to the bunker carrying a heavy scholar stone he once received as a gift intended to bring his family material wealth. Were here to help. Kevin has a much deeper plan. Mrs Kim taking advantage of the open lawn to practice her hammer-throw skills, at the expense of someones window. The Park family is also blissfully unaware that the Kims are all related, but the observant young Park son, Da-song (Jung Hyun-joon) notices that all the new hires smell the same. They didn't fold the Pizza boxes correctly. At this stage, a creepy sense of foreboding has set in. Guen-sae may not be the brightest of the bunch, but he's not entirely an idiot either. Down in the basement is Geun-sae, Moon-gwang's husband, who is hiding from loan sharks there. As Moon-kwangs husband and Mrs Kim struggle, Mrs Kim manages to stab Moon-kwangs husband through the abdomen with a skewer. Parasite: Every Main Character Ranked By Intelligence, Parasite: 7 Reasons It's Bong Joon-Ho's Best Movie (& 7 It's Not), The 10 Worst Family Movies Of All Time, Ranked, 5 Reasons Why HBO's Parasite Is A Good Idea (& 5 Why The Movie Should Be Left Alone), Parasite: D&D Alignments Of The Main Characters. This time it's true. Ki-woo visits the Parks in their gigantic home, where he is introduced to the spacey and out-of-touch Mrs. Park. The rock is ultimately Ki-woos downfall. The film was, for lack of better descriptors, a fucking wild trip. Ki-woo Kim (Choi Woo-Shik) is a young man living in poverty in the slums of a nameless South Korean city with his family - father Ki-taek Kim (Song Kang-ho), mother Chung-sook Kim (Jang Hye-jin), and sister Ki-jung (Park So-dam). Synopsis. Nominated for Best Picture at this year's Academy Awards, this Korean film certainly has a wide fanbase all over North America. Find out how you match to her and 5500+ other characters. The entire Kim family, beginning with Ki-woo, soon scam their way into different jobs for the Park family. They take the affluent home as their own while the Parks are away and thats when Moon-gwang shows back up and everything changes. Were told that the house was built by a renowned architect, and that the housekeeper, Moon-kwang (Lee Jung Eun), also worked for the architect before the house was sold to the Parks. resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss thenovel. The film's setup has a poor family, the Kims, infiltrating the lives of a wealthy family, the . Hes going to get his whole family into this house. She likes to play games with Ki-taek, calling him a cockroach and belittling him, as part of their marital dynamic. Moon-kwangs husband, enraged at the Kim family for leaving Moon-kwang for dead, attacks Ki-woo by strangling him and striking him in the head with the very fortune rock that Ki-woo brought. It was definitely worth all the $9.50 (Grab movie voucher for Cathay :P) I spent to get the full cinematic experience, and I would definitely watch it again (once I recover from the mental scars it left on me). The Kim family moves in for the weekend and luxuriates. In our Parasite movie analysis video, this mid-point scene was the focus. Ki-woo makes some rather poor choices, too, though. The metaphorical themes are presented in as literal a way as possible with the act of this stabbing. (Note: One of these ranked characters is a huge spoiler for one of the plot's biggest twists, so if you still haven't seenParasite, get on it and then come back and read this!). As silly an instruction this is, the Kim family respects his wishes and starts to comedically choke and cough as the fumes fill up their apartment, with only Mr Kim indifferent to the toxic fumes. More books than SparkNotes. We even learn that Moon-kwangs husband, like Mr Kim, also had a failed business venture in a cake shop. She is easily deceived by Ki-jeong's framing of the Park family chauffeur as explained by Dong-ik. When Da-song wants to sleep in a tent outside, Mr. and Mrs. Park sleep on the couch to watch over him. Perhaps he had just gone crazy, but choosing to go after more of the Kim family guaranteed that he would either be killed himself or that he'd land behind bars. I just felt that frankness was right for the film, even though it's sad." He is obsessed with keeping his employees controlled and hates nothing more than when one of his charges "crosses the line." This article was published more than3 years ago, Note: This story, as one might assume from its headline, contains major spoilers for Parasite.. "Parasite" displays the world of the impoverished and the hypocrisy of capitalist "laws." The family lives in abject povertyfirst trying to survive through the precarious work of folding pizza boxes and then finding a hustle by pretending to be middle class, educated and helpful. Her charismatic personality makes her excellent at fooling the Parks. The director even created a hash tag to warn people not to spoil the movie for others. It also makes perfect sense to me that a family would have the same smell as they live in the same house and use the same soaps and detergents. I interpreted the fortune rock as a satirical symbol of the Kim familys burdens and guilt at the circumstances, literally weighing down Ki-woo and revealing his presence as he drops it when sneaking up on Moon-kwang and her husband. Parasite exploded this past weekend on Oscar night when it became the first international film to win four Academy Awards, including the coup de grace, Best Picture. For Part 1, to read the Scene-By-Scene Breakdown discussion, go here. This is especially impressive given how ethnocentric the Academy Awards often unfold, prioritizing English-language films over foreign-language films much of the time. This vertical comment on status is illustrated cleanly in this alternate poster for the film, without spoiling the sub-basement reveal. Upload images to make storyboards and slideshows. What they dont realise is the effects their actions have. Each family has their own desperate reasons to continue leeching off the wealth of the Parks, and both would stop at nothing to do what is best or necessary for their family. Parasite Summary The film starts with the Kim family, a South Korean family struggling with poverty in a poor neighborhood in an unnamed city. Since then, the Park family had never spent Da-songs birthday in the house. They didn't fold the Pizza boxes correctly. Parasite Character Analysis (Avoiding Spoilers) Grew up. The social commentary of "Parasite" leads tochaos, but it never feels like a didactic message movie. After expressing some doubt at the lies he would have to sell to land the tutoring gig, Ki-woo enlists the help of the artistic Ki-jeong to forge university papers for him in order to land the job. The patriarch of the Kim family. For a quick breakdown on satire, including a segment on Parasite, here's an explainer that will answer all your questions about how satire works. "Parasite"is so perfectly calibrated that theres joy to be had in just experiencing every confident frame of it, but then thats tempered by thinking about what Bong is unpacking here and saying about society, especially with the perfect, absolutely hauntingfinal scenes. It speaks wonders to Parasites accessibility that it was received so well with such widely varying viewers. Parasite director Bong Joon-ho became the first South Korean filmmaker to win best director at the academy awards. Characters from Parasite (2019). Mr Park yells for Mr Kim to throw him the car keys, which unfortunately get stuck under Moon-kwangs husbands body as he falls. The Kim family lives in a semi-basement and struggles to keep food on the table. Parasite tells a story about disparate families, but also about disparate social classes, who are scrambling in a society that doesn't set them up to be protagonists and by default, pushes . Has also tied the record with Walt Disney for most Oscars awarded to an individual at a single ceremony. He deciphers a message, delivered in Morse code via a flickering light, that his father now inhabits the bunker. But that he doesn't press Yeon-gyo for replacing Moon-gwang, who has been with the family for quite some time is really when his fate is sealed. Min-hyuk offers Ki-woo his tutoring job while he's away noting that the family of the girl he tutors is not necessarily the best judge of character. Well be taking a look at all of the ingredients to made Parasite one of the best films of 2019 and one of the best South Korean films ever made, but first, lets get started with a Parasite synopsis. All three families at play are damaged by this explosive act of violence. as Chung-sook ( Ki-taek's wife ), Berlinale 2023 Highlights, Part Two: Reality, Manodrome, The Adults, Inside, Golda, Angela Bassett, Jamie Lee Curtis, Brendan Fraser, Cate Blanchett, Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson Feted at SBIFF 2023, Revisiting Martin Scorsese's Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Tragically Common: Jamie Dack, Lily McInerny and Jonathan Tucker on Palm Trees and Power Lines. Profession English tutor. More importantly, his failure to dispose of Geun-sae with the rock eventually proves to be not only his undoing but both the Park and Kim families alike. Master the art of visual storytelling with our FREE video series on directing and filmmaking techniques. The film is obviously a social commentary on the class divide in South Korea, but its so much more than that. Da-song was so shocked at seeing a strange man creep up the stairs with his bug-eyes wide open that he suffered a seizure, and this trauma also explains for the many creepy portraits that Da-song draws. A third leads to the upper floor of the Parks stylish home. All unemployed, Ki-taek's family takes peculiar interest in the wealthy and glamorous Parks for their livelihood until they get entangled in an unexpected incident. Yes, it wouldn't have taken as much skill as she demonstrated to convince Yeon-gyo to be Da-song's new art therapist, but she plays the part so well that it positions her charge an exorbitant sum of money. Geun-sae is Moon-gwang's husband, who is living in the bunker underneath the Parks' house, hiding out from the loan sharks who want to kill him. Acting on impulse, Ki-woo heads to a mountain near the house the Parks have since vacated, and which now belongs to a rich German family. Characters are the players in our stories. Parasite director Bong Joon-hos insightful and engaging comedy/thriller became one of the most talked-about films of the year and set a new precedent for the mark a South Korean movie can leave on United States movie-going audiences. The wide panning shots do great in conveying a sense of space in the large Park residence, and sequence shots make the viewer feel as though they are there with the characters, watching their lives unfold. Hiding under the coffee table when the Parks stylish home capture a large family group in a single frame,. Joon-Ho became the first South Korean filmmaker to win best director at the expense of someones.! A message, delivered in Morse code via a flickering light, that father... When Ki-woo goes into the basement, Geun-sae attacks him and bludgeons him in the.! Father now inhabits the bunker for others film, without spoiling the sub-basement reveal Parasites. Widely varying viewers visits the Parks in their gigantic home, where he is both her tutor her! 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