Parasite (2019) Barunson E&A / CJ Entertainment 📢 Director: Bong Joon Ho. 💰 Producers: Kwak Sin-ae, Moon Yang-kwon, Bong Joon Ho, Jang Young-hwan. 👫 Cast: Song Kang-ho, Lee Sun-kyun, Cho Yeo-jeong, Choi Woo-shik, Park So-dam, Jang Hye-jin. 🏆 Awards ceremony: -92nd Academy Awards: February 9, 2020. Dolby Theatre, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. 🎭 Other films nominated for Best Picture this year: -Ford v Ferrari. -The Irishman. -Jojo Rabbit. -Joker. -Little Women. -Marriage Story. -1917. -Once Upon A Time In Hollywood. 📕 Plot summary: Set in Seoul, South Korea, a teenage boy from a poor family and living in a shit-hole of a home is hired by a wealthy couple living in an immaculate, spacious home to help educate their teenage daughter. The poor family then manipulate themselves into getting jobs for the rest of their family so that they can all earn more money working for the wealthy family and revel in the temporary taste of luxury for their own pleasure. However, they haven't accounted for the house servant they managed to get rid of in the process to suddenly return and cause them all more grief than they could have expected. 💥 Standout scene(s): -Park Dong-ik giving those panties a good old sniff in the back of the car, followed by the whole discussion at home with his wife about them! -The flood that hits the slum homes and causing raw sewage to spew from their toilet made me laugh out loud. I don't know why. But that visual was hilarious. -Park Dong-ik giving his missus some massaging on the sofa as their son camps out in the garden in his wigwam tent. 'Buy me drugs. Buy me drugs'. -The housekeeper's husband living in the basement has his own unique way of sending Morse code!! -Best line from the movie: 'This SEND button is like a missile launcher'. 🔑 Facts: -The 92nd Academy Awards. -Nominated for 6 Academy Awards, it won 4: Best Picture, Director, Original screenplay, International feature film (South Korea). 🙂 Personal opinion: Watched as part of my Best Pictures project because otherwise I never would have bothered with it. And that would have been a real shame because.... I loved it! I went into with the thought that this foreign, subtitled load of rubbish was going to bore the ever-loving shit out of me and that I would be making all sorts of negative comments about it. How wrong I was. For the record, I watched the colour version (there is a black & white version) and in glorious 4K. And it looked absolutely stunning. That may have been one of the contributing factors in why I liked it so much. Firstly, the story was just brilliant. It felt original and although I doubt any of the actors will ever be big stars, they definitely kept the whole film interesting from start to finish. The black humour throughout was delicious and the art direction and sets were eye-popping to boot. The contrasting poor home with the cramped, messy crap everywhere; drowned in dull colours and shown at below street level as though the poor family were living like rats in filth. Compared with the colourful, tidy, organised and spacious home of the rich family where everything is defined by straight lines and immaculate cleanliness. Just superb. With the final 20 minutes it abruptly turns into an unexpected, silly, messy, bloody, rampage and bloodbath! It was a WHOAH! after WHOAH! scene! What a bloody incredibly good film, one of the best I have seen in a long time. Did it deserve the Oscar? ✅YES. This must have been around the time when the Academy turned into a bunch of pussies and started giving in to the minorities and their fucking demands to be recognised, despite the fact these people didn't DESERVE the awards that they got! That said.... I thought this was an exceptionally well-done film and despite my initial reservations on seeing it I do have to admit it DID deserve the win. 9/10

Review date: 07 August 2025