Parasite

Spoiler-Free Recommendation: For those looking for something different, who enjoy the unexpected, and don’t require 100% hyper-realism start-to-finish.

(Social-Class-Commentary-Free) Review:

I think of motivation. Ki-woo ends up not very far from where he started when presented with his new opportunity; this is interesting to me, not so much a criticism. The story is an absolute ride and the tension grabs you. The Kim family plan plays out like heist, save the blueprint roll-out montage: refreshingly ‘real-time’. The required suspension of disbelief feels just shy of camp at times, yet your experience is pretty elegantly curated to meet the film there. The entire cast does a great job baiting your emotional investment; the losses are felt—high emotional engagement factor.

American flicks have lead me to believe the human skull is more like an egg shell than Bong’s coconut-strength depiction. Also, I personally wonder if the film has a sort of veil smoothing out the edges, where I could otherwise closer scrutinize a movie in a language I understand and culture I naturally identify with (not at the expense of the praise Parasite receives—I really should just see more foreign films).

My point is: after it all hits the fan, the dust settles, and my list of conclusion idioms is exhausted, the whirlwind events of the film push Ki-woo just one short year ahead of his timeline to wise up and go to university … to earn the degree his sister Ki-jung forged.