Parasite (2019)

Every year the Academy Awards are held and they honor all the best in cinema from best picture right down to best actor and so much more. Sometimes, there are films that look like they are going to be a shoe in for the Best Picture Award, but then there are some years we are surprised with a head scratcher like Moonlight in 2017 or the film I chose for today in this year's big winner Parasite. The film was released in 2019 and it was written and directed by Bong Joon Ho (Okja) and it stars Woo-sik Choi (Okja) as Ki Woo, a kid from the slums of Korea who gets the opportunity of a lifetime when he agrees to tutor a girl from a wealthy family. After seeing how successful he is, he decides to get his family involved secretly with jobs, but soon greed and class discrimination will come between the two families. The film also stars Kang-ho Song (Snowpiercer) as Ki Taek, Sun-kyun Lee (A Hard Day) as Dong Ik, Yeo-jeong Jo (The Servant) as Yeon Kyo, So-dam Park (The Silenced) as Ki Jung,  Hye-jin Jang (Marine Boy) as Chung Sook, Jeong-eun Lee (Okja) as Moon Gwang, Ji-so Jung (The Tiger) as Da Hye, and Hyun-jun Jung (The King: Eternal Monarch) as Da Song.

I wanted to know what the big deal with this film was and why it would win best picture over 1917, Ford V Ferrari, Joker, Little Women, etc. With the exception of Ford V Ferrari and Little Women (I have not yet seen those films) any one of those pictures had a legitimate shot at winning especially Joker. The question of why still lies in front of us and this is one of those you have to see it for yourself kind of films because one it is a well written story of desperation to not continue to be on the opposite side of society. Ki Woo is sick and tired of being poor, living in a basement apartment just to wonder if they'll have Wifi or not which seems like the least of their worries. He is sick of the idea that his father could never provide for them so when he infiltrates this family's, they initiate their plan and they infiltrate it like they are parasites. Just when you think the story is just going to be whether they get caught in a lie or not, they throw the added layer of the man living in the basement which adds another layer of WTF!The acting in the film is very well done and I was thoroughly impressed with everyone's performance in the film. The cinematography was great as well with all those gritty shots and the overall tone of the film was dark for the most part like it was a seedy undertaking. I definitely think that this was a really good film and I would have picked this one over Moonlight as a best picture winner, but I am still not sure I would have picked this over some of the other films.  With that being said, I am going to give the film an A for a final grade because it definitely deserved best foreign film and best original screenplay for sure.