Two South Korean households, one broke and one rich, end up sharing far more than either planned in Parasite, the 2019 feature from director Bong Joon-ho that sits somewhere between comedy and drama and refuses to settle on either.
What is Parasite about?
Nobody in Ki-taek's family has a job. Work is scarce, money is scarcer, and the household gets by on whatever small opportunity turns up. Then an opening appears in the home of the Parks, a wealthy and glamorous family whose comfortable life looks like the answer to every problem Ki-taek's relatives have. Their interest in the Parks grows into a way of earning a living, and for a while the arrangement seems to suit everyone. What neither side sees coming is a single unexpected incident that tangles the two families together and makes it impossible to go back to how things were.
About the cast
Song Kang-ho heads the ensemble, joined by Lee Sun-kyun, Cho Yeo-jeong, Choi Woo-shik and Park So-dam, with Lee Jung-eun, Chang Hyae-jin and Park Myung-hoon completing the main cast. The story depends on two complete families rather than a single lead, so the performers work as groups, and much of the comedy and the unease comes from how the two households speak, move and behave around each other.
Context & significance
Parasite is a South Korean production released in 2019 and runs 133 minutes. It is listed under both comedy and drama, and that double label is accurate: the early stretch plays lightly, with schemes and quick talk, while the later part grows heavier as the gap between the two families becomes harder to ignore. Money, employment and the distance between people who have a lot and people who have very little are the subjects underneath the plot. Bong Joon-ho keeps the action largely inside homes, which turns rooms, stairs and doorways into part of the storytelling. It has been warmly received by audiences and stands among the most admired titles in the catalogue.
Watching Parasite on Ktime
Parasite is available on K-Time with a Persian dub, so Farsi-speaking viewers can follow it without reading subtitles. Reading this page is open to everyone; to press play you sign in with a K-Time account. The service is built for the Iranian diaspora, with menus, search and title pages in Farsi.