Parasite is a 2019 South Korean dark comedy thriller film directed by Bong Joon-ho. It tells the story of a poor family, the Kims, who scheme to become employed by a wealthy family, the Parks, by infiltrating their household and posing as unrelated, highly qualified individuals. The film explores themes of class struggle and income inequality as the two families become entangled in an unexpected series of events.
Parasite is best known for its shocking narrative twist towards the end of the film. After carefully laying the groundwork and lulling the audience into a false sense of security, Bong Joon-ho pulls the rug out from under the viewers’ feet with a major revelation that reframes everything that has come before.
What is the basic premise of Parasite?
The Kim family consists of Ki-taek and Chung-sook, their daughter Ki-jung, and son Ki-woo. They live in a tiny, windowless semi-basement apartment and struggle to make ends meet working low-paying, temporary jobs. By chance, Ki-woo’s friend Min-hyuk offers him an opportunity to take over as the English tutor for the wealthy Park family’s daughter, Da-hye.
Ki-woo forges college documents and secures the tutoring position, becoming acquainted with the oblivious Parks. He then conspires with his family to scheme their way into additional jobs serving the Parks – Ki-jung posing as an art therapist, Ki-taek as a driver, and Chung-sook as the housekeeper after orchestrating the dismissal of the Parks’ original housekeeper Moon-gwang.
The Kims provide their employers with new identities, pretending not to know one another. They enjoy the lavish lifestyle working for the wealthy Parks while concealing their true circumstances. Things seem to be going perfectly for the Kims as they exploit their unsuspecting employers – until an uninvited person shows up and threatens to unravel the entire charade.
Act 1: The Kims infiltrate the Park household
In the first half of the film, the emphasis is on the Kims scheming their way into employment with the wealthy Parks by posing as unrelated individuals. Each manages to get hired one after the other through manipulation and lies. They conceal their poor background and begin blending in, enjoying the luxuries of the Park mansion.
The poor family revels in their new lives as they deceive the rich employers. The audience is even led to root for the Kims as they seemingly outsmart the privileged Parks, who are portrayed as naive, oblivious, and unlikable. Everything seems to be going perfectly for the underdog Kims – but it cannot last.
Act 2: Cracks in the facade begin to show
The second half of Parasite takes a darker turn as the Kims’ elaborate ruse begins to unravel. During a storm, the Parks’ former housekeeper Moon-gwang shows up, revealing she has been hiding her husband in a secret bunker under the house. His existence threatens to expose the Kims’ web of lies.
Desperate to keep their jobs, the Kims viciously turn against Moon-gwang and her husband, unleashing shocking brutality to maintain their upper-hand charade. After committing violent acts to preserve their secret, the Kims appear shaken and uneasy about how far they have gone – but they cannot turn back now.
Ominous signs foreshadow the Kims’ downfall. Class tensions simmering under the surface boil over. The wealthy Parks remain unaware of the sinister intruders in their home as the dangerous game plays out.
What is the big twist in Parasite?
The turning point arrives during the Kims’ son Ki-woo’s birthday party. While the Kims celebrate upstairs with the Parks, the apartment’s original housekeeper Moon-gwang staggers in from the bunker, bleeding from a head wound.
In a horrifying reveal, Ki-jung looks down to see Moon-gwang collapse and die right in front of their semi-basement apartment – the Kims’ secret home. They do not actually live in the glamorous house as they had pretended. Rather, the mansion belongs to the Parks sitting obliviously above them.
This startling twist reveals that not only have the Kims infiltrated the Park’s household by posing as unrelated workers, but they were literally living underneath the Parks’ home the entire time, hid away in the dark, dingy semi-basement apartment.
The Kims are not the gentlemen and sophisticates they have pretended to be. They are poor, desperate squatters who have been staging an elaborate con right under the Park family’s nose, crafting fake identities to claw their way into jobs serving their wealthy benefactors upstairs. Their actual home is infested with roaches and reeks of mold, a stark contrast to the spotless, luxurious house they have been playing at.
In an instant, the viewer’s perception shifts. As the Kims panic over Moon-gwang’s dead body at their doorstep, the flashy second half of the film is revealed to be a facade, occurring right above the impoverished grifters’ squalid living conditions. The twist serves as a gut-punch, re-contextualizing the Kims as conniving parasites leeching off and deceiving their oblivious hosts.
Significance of the twist
This mind-blowing twist is a masterstroke from director Bong Joon-ho, breathed subtly through the early foundation laid in Act 1. Upon rewatching, viewers can recognize clever narrative seeds planted that hint at the Kims’ true living conditions, though the audience is unlikely to piece together the twist beforehand.
The reveal underscores the film’s themes of class disparity and privilege. The wealthy Parks live carefree above ground while the struggling Kims dwell literally beneath them,mostly invisible. Their vastly different lived experiences collide in shocking fashion through Bong’s narrative sleight of hand.
The moment reframes our understanding of the Kim family. Previously seeming like clever, likeable underdogs, they are now revealed as deceitful parasites feeding off their unknowing hosts. However, it also implicates the Parks, oblivious to the poverty existing right under their feet.
The inspired narrative twist stays true to Parasite’s layered social commentary, challenging the audience’s perceptions and assumptions in a bold, thought-provoking way.
How does the twist change the meaning of earlier scenes?
Once seen, the twist forces the audience to re-evaluate everything that has come before in the film. Many moments take on new, ironic meaning when revisited with altered perspective.
The opening scenes
The opening of the film features the Kim family’s cramped basement apartment. The drunk urinating in the alley is loud and invasive, their street is filthy and noisy. This introductory setting is revealed to be their actual home, not just a temporary dwelling before infiltrating the Parks’ house as it first appears.
The Kims’ poverty-stricken existence makes their scheming to leech off the wealthy Parks more desperate and depraved. Their living conditions motivate the lengths they will go to in deceiving the Park family.
The tutoring scenes
When Ki-woo first arrives at the Park mansion as Da-hye’s tutor, he marvels at its cleanliness and luxury. The audience is led to see it exclusively through Ki-woo’s admiring perspective.
When we realize this gleaming house exists directly above the Kims’ filthy, cramped basement dwelling, Ki-woo’s awe transforms into hungry envy. His obsession with infiltrating the oblivious rich family stems from resentment at their decadence towering over his own poverty.
The party preparation
A scene shows Ki-jung preparing food for Ki-woo’s party with the Parks. She gazes out the window at the glamorous surroundings, basking in the rain’s patter on the window – a luxury unavailable in her real basement hovel prone to flooding.
Once we know this polished setting is not actually her home, Ki-jung’s preparation becomes darkened by concealed resentment, glaring at the backyard she covets but cannot truly possess. Her facade of grateful service masks bitter jealousy.
The flooding scenes
Twice in the film, torrential rain leads to dangerous flooding – first in the Kims’ neighborhood, then later at the Park mansion. Water accumulates in the Kim family’s basement apartment, forcing them up onto crowded higher ground.
Later, as the Kims pose as Park employees, a storm floods the rich mansion’s pristine backyard. The two flooding sequences ironically reflect the other’s setting once the twist reframes their relationship – the flooding above ground mirrors the flooding below.
The scenes underline how the lower-class Kims bear the brunt of natural disaster while the Parks remain largely unscathed, just as with the socioeconomic forces exploiting the Kims.
Moon-gwang in the basement
Earlier scenes show former housekeeper Moon-gwang secretly residing in a hidden bunker beneath the Parks’ house, before eventually being violently ousted by the Kims.
Once we realize the Kims also live in the basement, Moon-gwang’s hidden underground living quarters take on ironic significance. The Kims resent the intrusion into their “territory” by Moon-gwang, a fellow poor interloper threatening their charade. Her secret bunker existence underground reflects their own – desperate, invisible, and burrowed beneath the oblivious wealthy Parks.
Conclusion
Parasite’s masterful narrative twist during the climactic birthday party scene forcefully reframes the audience’s understanding of the Kim family, the Parks, and the relationship between them.
By revealing the Kims’ actual squalid living conditions directly under the Parks’ luxury home, Bong Joon-ho inverts our perception of both families. What first appeared as a clever uprising of scrappy underdogs against oblivious privilege becomes a more tragic portrayal of resentful poverty driven to dehumanizing lengths just to survive.
The twist works both as an effective dramatic reveal and as thematic commentary on social inequality. It challenges the audience’s perspective in ways that resonate beyond the film, staying true to Parasite’s layered exploration of class and privilege. Few twists in recent memory have so thoroughly earned their breathtaking surprise and led viewers to reassess the entire film with fresh eyes.