University of Saint Anthony

(Dr. Santiago G. Ortega Memorial)

City of Iriga

SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL DEPARTMENT

Name: Alexandra V. Corporal

Section: 11-Grace (STEM)

PARASITE REACTION PAPER

In the Oscar-winning movie, Parasite, it talks about how life works so different between the
upper and lower class of our society. It starts with the Kims who lives in a basement-like
apartment wherein they did unusual jobs just to earn money. And then there’s the luxurious Park
family who lives in a box-type house above the hills. Their social classes are very different from
each other as we see how their lives intertwined and somehow turned into a parasitic relationship.

As Ki Woo (Kevin) got an opportunity to tutor the daughter of the rich Park Family, he made a
plan that he thought could possibly change their lives. One by one, the Kims infiltrated the Park
Household, slowly replacing the previous workers of the Park Household by exploiting them. Even
though they know what they’re doing was wrong they couldn’t help it because they were
imprisoned by the thought of being wealthy. This shows the sacrifices people would do anything
just for money and wealth, especially those who belong to the lower class. We can see the
solidarity between the Kim Family, through their struggles they are a true family, they show love
and loyalty to one another, they never left a family member jobless and made a way to get each
member a job. However, it’s not until long that the Kims discover that they’re not the only ones
leeching off of the Parks, in the climax of the movie, it’s revealed that the former housekeeper of
the Parks is hiding her husband in a bunker beneath the house to escape the violence of his loan
sharks. When Moon Gwang (the former housekeeper) also discovers the secret the Kims we’re
hiding it suddenly becomes a battle of the lower class or a fight for survival. We can’t really blame
both of the families, I think the director is trying to show us the desperation that comes with
being in the lower class. As for the Parks, they showed that the rich aren’t always the innocent
ones, like for example the thought of using drugs and using the undergarment of the lower class
just for their own pleasure, even though earlier in the movie they looked at these ideas with
shame, it became sort of like a fantasy because they are so removed from the reality that they
 University of Saint Anthony
(Dr. Santiago G. Ortega Memorial)
City of Iriga

SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL DEPARTMENT

could do things like that and not feel anything. Also, the ignorance that they showed in the movie
especially Mr. and Mrs. Park just showed how rich people doesn’t care about the people below
them, like for example, the scene where Mrs. Park was talking to her friend on her phone
exclaiming how the rain was such a blessing for them, completely ignorant to the fact that many
people in the city including the Kim Family became homeless. Another example of this is how the
Parks display their hatred towards the smell of the poor family. They choose to be ignorant with
the extreme poverty that surrounds them because they are comfortable with the lifestyle that
they have.

All in all this film was one of the greatest films I’ve watched, Bong Joon-Ho really did a great job
in making this masterpiece. From the storyline to the cinematography, everything was in great
detail. One of my favorite scenes from the movie was the one where the Kim Family was
performing the plan for removing the former housekeeper, I really think that it was brilliant. Also,
the symbolisms that the movie showed just like the stairs, it symbolizes the distance between the
two classes. To analyze from the title, we mostly think that it represents the way that these lower
classes leech off the generosity of the upper classes, but as we see it from a different perspective
The Parks are also parasites, they leech off of the lower classes by living comfortably off the
backs of their labor. One of the things I learned from this movie is that greed is destructive, it’s
the one of the things that motivated the Kims to do what they did, and the most serious issue
with greed is that it frequently leads to acts that harm others.