I particularly love to see international films, and more if they are from Asian countries because they usually print a lot of drama and seriousness to all their productions, and let me tell you that so far they have not disappointed me, so Parasite was an obvious bet on quality.

In short, Parasite is a remarkable black comedy that focuses mainly on class struggle and social stratification, and how the desire of the less wealthy to have what the wealthy have is the source that powers the whole plot.

A film that uses formidable minimalism that is combined with prodigious camera work and chromatism, using in a sharp way the allegory of the two antagonistic homes to create incredible scenarios.

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The Story

The film begins as a typical comedy where we see that a family of losers who are constantly looking for ways to escape from the abyss in which their lives are, meets a family of millionaires and in them their golden ticket to leave misery, so little by little in their desire to get to the top they will be incrusted in the millionaires home just like parasites.

So far the story seems normal, however everything takes an unexpected turn when the plot takes us to a completely different path turning the story into a kind of oppressive psychological thriller, with traces of horror, but without losing its essence of dark humor. The director Joon-ho succeeds in interweaving the social reality with the most hurtful satire, where envy and idleness come together in a fierce battle to win the house of these rich, where the idea that the poor will fight for the spoils of the rich is still there.

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A disturbing, twisted, acidic story, that after a somewhat confused beginning, will trap us in its unhealthy nets, with a fluid and agile rhythm that doesn't stop surprising us, in which the yearnings to survive shake hands with pungency, where some people must crush others to gain momentum and win certain battles inside the house, with intelligent characters that get us to emptize with them and care what happens to them, deriving in exciting and tense moments. A story that advance like an intense crescendo to end in a shocking end.

The whole story is constructed in an almost perfect way thanks to a script that provides a mine of resources that give weight and allegorical depth to the work, knowing how to give human dimension to all the characters without falling into the idea of sweetening some and demonizing others, neither the (poor) Kim are angels, nor the (rich) Park are arrogant evil ones, but if it subtly marks the differences without being grotesque, in small details that are making inroads, especially exemplified in something intangible such as the smell, such as if classism was inseparable from the corporal fluids, or as the boss convinces the driver to disguise himself as an Indian, emphasizing this with the "I will pay you", as if dignity could be bought.

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If all the "madness" inside the house between the rich and the poor were not enough, the director adds an incredible twist to the plot when he decides to add two characters that give another meaning and add layers to the subtext of the film, confronting two groups of poor people, promoting the idea that the world is Darwinian, that is to, say that only the strongest survive. With this, the film becomes more intense and fun.
when new hidden battles to win the favoritism of millionaires appear.

The Characters

The actors who give life to the families are incredible, they show an intensity like I have almost never seen, especially because they manage to transmit even the smallest feelings of disgust, misfortune, anxiety and struggle. Song Kang-ho as Kim Ki-taek is the great actor of the film, the charismatic fetish actor overflows the screen with his expressiveness, his gift of empathy, and knows how to show incisively his character development, his latent boredom that ends up exploding, brilliant. Park Yeon-kyo as Mrs. Kim wastes sympathy, innocence, but without falling into ridicule, humanizing her role as bourgeois; Kim Ki-woo as Woo-sik Choi, the son of the Kims, a role wrapped in melancholy, remarkable fulfilling his role in a brilliant way.

The characters are supported by a wonderful staging that manages to project an emotional state on which to develop this fable in a tremendous way. Beginning with that excellent fusion between the production design of Ha-jun Lee and the cinematography of Kyung-pyo Hong, conjugating two opposite worlds; on the one hand the depressing and dark house of the Kims, embedded in a filthy neighborhood, in front of the mansion of the Park, a place of enormous windows where the light enters in a beautiful way in their transparent rooms, with a luminescent green garden, and all this filtered through sensational photography, highlighting the dramatic differences, with oppressive shots when it should, and spacious when it needs it, knowing how to move fluidly through the co-protagonist of the modernist mansion Park, in an agile way, with zenithal shots, with angulations, with actions in the background, adding choreographies of movements of wonderful characters, in fights, in the way of hiding, formidable.

Basically the whole process of performance of the actors is developed as a play where each scene and each interpretation is accompanied by masterful shots and settings that make everything merge into something splendid.

Summary

A film magnificently directed and developed to catch us from the beginning with sub plots that quickly meet each other to make the story take unexpected turns that give depth and intensity to a social comedy full of satires about society. Where the actors stand out enormously for the commitment and emotion they give to their characters, so much so that although they do many questionable things, we can understand why they do it and why they continue to tolerate the onslaught of a family that sees them as cockroaches.

Without a doubt this is a wonderful film that I recommend even to the least fanatical of cinema because it has everything to entertain and make them have a great time.

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