Who are the real Parasites?

        Parasite (2019) is a movie about two households, both alike in dignity. In fair Korea, where we lay our scene. From forth the fatal loins of these… two… foes, ok the Skakespeare metaphor is falling apart but it does deal with two families and how the struggle between the rich and poor is ever present in today’s society and how it looks even worse than here in the good ol’ U.S. of A. 

This struggle brings up the question the title of the film subtly suggests. Who is/are the real parasites? At first glance it seems obvious that it’s the Kim family. When given the opportunity they do what they can to try and mooch off of the Park family’s success and even push out the old housekeeper and sure enough the whole family slyly finds a job to do for the family without the Park’s knowing they are all the same family. And yet we find ourselves both rooting for them to find success and also shame and look down on the methods of manipulation used to get themselves there. Yet throughout the film we slowly see how Dong Ik (Sun-kyun Lee) has a philosophy about people crossing the line and not liking people who don’t know there place, namely the poor people an often refers to a smell they have, something that gets to Ki Taek (Kang-ho Song) when he eventually kills Dong Ik. But the only reason the Park family can live a life of such luxury is because of the wealth and labor of those who are less fortunate. The tech company that Dong Ik is apparently the head of can be traced to modern tech companies like Apple and it is likely Ik’s company exploits labor the same way with workers giving hours upon hours a day for a starvation wage in very poor working conditions.

The scholar stone that Ki-Woo (Woo-sik Choi) gets at the beginning however, is described by Win (Seo-jun Park) is supposed to bring material wealth to those who have it. It seems to have worked as the Kim’s do find the wealth they have wanted. But as the film goes on the price for that status becomes more unbearable as after finding out about Geun Se (Myeong-hoo Park) in the basement, eventually the death of Moon Gwang (Jeong-eun Lee) as well as the flooding of their semi-basement home, and for Ki Taek the smell, it becomes to much. So much that when Ki Woo is about to use the rock for a malicious purpose, the rock he had grabbed and held onto all this time slips from his arm and instead was used to almost kill him. I took this as if you are going to get the wealth you want, you can’t do it the way people like Dong Ik does it, the cycle of wealth exploiting the poor and the poor bringing down those who are also poor only to get the scraps of the rich can’t continue as seen with the deaths of Geun Se, Ki-jung and Dong Ik only ends in suffering. It’s only more dreadful as it is shown throughout that Ki-Jung (So-dm Park) is shown to be excellent with technology and by her skills Ki-Woo gets to look the part of a tutor with a degree. It is these skills that Ki-Taek notices and is complemented on and it is with great speculation that her skills could be what could’ve gotten at her out as it is also commented on that Ki-Jung is the only one who feels like she belongs with the upper classes and feels comfortable in such a rich house. The chance for long term success and upward mobility is there, it just wasn’t with the whole family and sadly the one Kim that could’ve been successful os the one who dies at the end.

Other details: Da Song (Hyun-jun Jung) is the only one who connects the dots and almost figures out that everyone is related to each other through smell. It’s also him that sees Geun Se one night. The drawing he also makes all seem to have the same theme of a giant face with piercing eyes.