The Korean movie Parasite won the Oscar and attracted a lot of attention world wide and also in Japan.
I do watch Korean movies once in a while, mostly on Korean Air flights, so I am not strange to their style (and quality).
But I feel this move is over-rated, and could not explain to myself why it won the Oscar.
It is a good movie, but I wished it had some more depth in it.
The good:
- Social issues: The movie addresses some Korean social issues like importance of education, getting into the right school.
The social gap between the rich and educated to people who cannot escape the poverty line.
The cost of failure: Taking loans and the need to go underground to stay alive - Photography, feeling of almost watching a play as most of the movie takes place inside of two houses, the rich and the poor
I wish it had more:
The rich are not that bad. Obviously in one of the last scenes the rich prefer to take care of a child which just fainted rather than handle a stabbing wound. But I wish there was more connection between the rich and the poor. For example, the rich owning lands and forcing the poor out of their home
While the son fantasizes about marrying the rich Daughter, I wish she was more cruel. Just playing with him as a diversion. There was a hint of that in the movie, but I wanted it to be stronger