Parasite 4K 2019 KOREAN Ultra HD 2160p

Ki-tek's poor family is a bunch of loafers and losers: the stupid son of Ki-wu cannot save money for studies, the daughter of Ki-john left school for the same reason, his father and his wife Chong-suk are interrupted by casual earnings and dream of a better life (at least about moving from a semi-basement apartment, from where you can see only the feet of passers-by and striving to urinate against the wall of drunkards). Out of all of them, Ki-wu is lucky in the end - his student friend leaves for another country and offers his friend to take up his ward from a wealthy family, whom he taught English at home.

Ki-wu, of course, grabs the opportunity, invents a more solid past and rubs his trust in the rich - he will soon advise them to hire a drawing teacher for his younger son (his teacher will, of course, turn out to be a teacher), and together they will begin to implement an aggressive plan on moving the whole family to new employers.

Parasite 4K Review
Ki-tek's poor family is a bunch of loafers and losers: the stupid son of Ki-wu cannot save money for studies, the daughter of Ki-john left school for the same reason, his father and his wife Chong-suk are interrupted by casual earnings and dream of a better life (at least about moving from a semi-basement apartment, from where you can see only the feet of passers-by and striving to urinate against the wall of drunkards). Out of all of them, Ki-wu is lucky in the end - his student friend leaves for another country and offers his friend to take up his ward from a wealthy family, whom he taught English at home.

Ki-wu, of course, grabs the opportunity, invents a more solid past and rubs his trust in the rich - he will soon advise them to hire a drawing teacher for his younger son (his teacher will, of course, turn out to be a teacher), and together they will begin to implement an aggressive plan on moving the whole family to new employers.

The Korean director, Pong Joon-ho, is probably not as well known to the general public as his colleague Park Chan-uk, and is not as popular with the festival audience as Lee Chan-dong or Hong Sang-soo. And it’s a shame, because Pont is one of the most equal Asian authors, back in 2003, he staked out his place in the movie “Memoirs of a Murder”. Without any reservations, a brilliant film - either a thriller or a tragicomedy about the police who tried to catch the first serial maniac in the history of South Korea, was never caught. This is such a Korean "Zodiac", but, perhaps, even better, and it came out four years earlier than the Fincher art blockbuster.

Following the “Memoirs,” Pon Jun-ho made two good films in Korea, then painlessly infiltrated Hollywood, where he shot two more - the okolokultovy post-apocalyptic “Through the Snow” and the satirical eco-fantasy “Okcha”, booed in Cannes a couple of years ago for that that her rental dared to deal with Netflix. Now the cosmopolitan director returned to his homeland, made “Parasites” and again came to the Cote d'Azur - there instead of whistles and a discontented hum, Pont suddenly received a ten-minute standing ovation, bitter tears, a flood of laughter and, finally, the “Golden Palm Branch”, the first in the history of his country.

It seems that almost everyone liked his “Parasites” in Cannes - they, like last year’s “Burning” (symptomatically, also Korean), reconciled old and young, serious and playful, stingy with emotions of esthetic cynics and those who are open to everything new, weird and funny. They united everyone in a single outburst of sincere, pure cinematic joy that overthrows any barriers: there is no longer any sad, no funny, no author, no genre, no "audience", no arthouse. Or there is everything at the same time.

Pon, in previous works, lost all distinction between humor and tragedy, found a source of natural comicity even in the heavy story of the brutal murders of a serial maniac (actually, “Memoirs of a murder”) or the fate of a poor mother whose son went to prison (“Mother”). In Parasites, he retains this eclectic intonation, but turns his method a hundred and eighty degrees. About half of the film, he shows a funny farcical story about cunning poverty and stupid rich people, in order to suddenly turn into a magical trip in the middle, mixing genres, tones and themes. Strange, enigmatic, even absurd and yet very specific in what he wants to say.

As in all recent works, Pong Jun-ho is not shy of frontal metaphor and is not afraid of unambiguous interpretations. Moreover, he openly ironizes with himself, declares in the voice of one of the heroes: they say, yes, you are right, "this is all a metaphor." The director is not interested in hidden meanings and complex allegories - his code lies on the surface, and it’s much more curious not about what his movie is about (to understand this, just read the synopsis), but how far Pon Joon-ho will lead his leapfrog with style and images. If in the beginning it’s obvious to us who is hiding under those “parasites,” then the film’s title takes on global and comprehensive meaning: the poor parasites, the rich parasites, the parasites in the kitchen, the attic and the basement, inside and out, both back side of the screen. This is all a metaphor, yes, but no one warned how wide it is.

Pon Jun-ho carefully probes the fabric of the real and the absurd, takes history into the realm of a kind of modern myth (or a fairy tale, which, however, is almost the same thing) - in a good way ridiculous, allegorical, at the same time very national and absolutely universal. He treats history too lightly and unobtrusively to be accused of pretentiousness, and subtle enough that his voice does not sink in absurd scenes and vaudeville oddities. While others are afraid of extremes, Pon seems to work only with them - his “Parasites” are super-expressive in some scenes and Spartan modest in others, his actors (led by the great Song Kang-ho) are expressive and surprisingly accurate in the smallest details of emotions . He tells the story of barriers and sections - social, emotional and linguistic (heroes often embarrassingly insert Anglicism into a speech) - in a movie language that completely denies any boundaries. Respect.