Film reviews:

Parasite

Writer-director Bong Joon-ho mines a mother lode of deliciously cruel intentions in his wickedly entertaining, genre-bending satire, which is certain to convert some of its six Oscar nominations into golden statuettes.

Careening wildly from slapstick and scabrous social commentary to full-blooded horror, Parasite gleefully inhabits the cavernous divide between South Korea’s haves and have-nots.

The script, co-written by Han Jin-won, lulls us into a false sense of security with a gently paced yet engrossing opening hour before Joon-ho tightens the screws on his desperate characters, setting in motion a jaw-dropping second act.

The film-maker dissipates tension with staccato bursts of ghoulish humour but each belly laugh is soaked with bile – primal screams of despair at a world that repeatedly kicks the poor and disenfranchised when they are down.

“Money is an iron” notes a mother on the wrong side of the class divide, who asserts that wealth smooths out life’s creases and would undoubtedly sweeten her malodorous disposition.

With Joon-ho at the helm, any barbs are positioned with surgical precision to draw spurts of blood as the besieged protagonists stagger forlornly towards the brink of self-destruction.

Wily patriarch Kim Ki-tek (Song Kang-ho) presides over a family of con artists, including his sharp-tongued wife Chung-sook (Chang Hyae-jin), mildmannered son Ki-woo (Choi Woo-shik) and daughter Ki-jung (Park So-dam).

They live in a squalid basement apartment in a poor neighbourhood of Seoul, with a prime view of drunken passers-by urinating in the street.

The resourceful clan exploit free Wi-fi to secure thankless jobs such as folding cardboard pizza delivery boxes.

It’s an unedifying hand-to-mouth existence.

Good fortune smiles unexpectedly on Ki-woo when good friend Min-hyuk (Park Seo-joon) recommends him as an English tutor for teenager Park Da-hae (Jeong Ji-so).

Ki-woo falsifies his qualifications to impress Da-hae’s wealthy mother Yonkyo (Cho Yeo-jeong) and father Dong-ik (Lee Sun-kyun).

Once he has earned the couple’s misplaced trust, Ki-woo recommends a college friend called Jessica as an art therapist for Da-hae’s younger brother, Da-song (Jung Hyeon-jun).

Sister Ki-jung arrives in the guise of Jessica and passes off theories from the internet as her personal philosophy to unlock a child’s potential.

Ki-tek and Chung-sook also seek positions under false pretences.

However, the simmering suspicions of fashionable housekeeper Mun-kwang (Lee Jung-eun) threaten to expose the ingenious deception.

★★★★★★★★★★

Picture: PA. Choi Woo-shik as Kim Ki-woo, Song Kang-ho as Kim Ki-taek, Chang Hyae-jin as Kim Chung-sook and Park So-dam as Kim Ki-jeong.