Digging into the movie Parasite

We need desperately to facilitate a discussion.
By: Tex Wambui and Muika Yohannis
Tex Wambui and Muika Yohannis are believers in pursuing your dream and seizing the day. 
A father (Ki-taek), a son (Ki-woo), a daughter (Ki-jung) and a mother (Chung-sook) living in South Korea experiencing personal and financial hardships. This family is looking for opportunities that can elevate their status and ability to navigate within their world. However, there is difficulty considering their situation. 

The movie Parasite directed by Bong Joon-Ho introduces viewers to a realistic situation that people deal with daily. The Kim family is poor and lives in a vulnerable neighborhood (which we later see gets flooded with sewage water). Their son's friend, Min-hyuk, gives an offer to Ki-woo to take over his job as a tutor for the park family. The Park family is wealthy and lives in a well-structured mansion of a former architect. The Kim family strategy was to forge a diploma from the University of Yonsei University and provide it as a means of credibility. Ki-woo ends up being well-liked by Mrs. Park and the rest unfolds from there, with the rest of the Kim family members being employed through deceit. The huge income gap between “the rich and the poor” is very real and we can see it through the luxury items the Park’s have in their home while the Kim family struggles to live in comfort and luxury. 
There’s a lot of hidden messages behind the difference in perspectives of the daily lifestyle of the two families. We can see it with the poor fighting over the scraps of the rich with the Kim family and the former house lady and her husband leaching from the Parks without them knowing, kind of like a “parasite”. The Park family was self-centered and didn’t care much for the poor people's struggles. It can be also be inferred that they had disdain for people of the lower community. For example, Mr. Park always complaining of the smell that Mr. Kim had, comparing it to the subway system that the local people use. Another example is Mrs.Park complaining about how the rain ruined their son’s camping trip, but how everything turned to be fine because they had a garden, while Mr.Kim family and their neighbors lost their houses due to flooding from the rain. So, the Park family reap the labor of their workers with no concerns of their struggles. Thus, the Park family can be also seen as a “parasite”. Ki-jung said to his father that he plans to attend the University after he gets the job experience as a tutor. As we know from the movie, right after their house was flooded, Mr.Kim tells Ki-jung that plans don’t ever work out how we want them to. This alludes to the end where Ki-Jung says he has a plan to buy the Parks’ house in the future.

The movie is emphasizing the importance of persevering through hardships. After the son was employed by the Park family, he configured a plan on how to ensure he could assist his family in some sort of way. He was able to persuade the Park family to hire someone he knew (Ki-jung) to be a tutor for the youngest son of the Park family. With that, their deceitful strategy proved to be successful since everyone in the Kim family was employed and striving to make a living. This shows that through struggle, there is always a way to find a niche that can enable others. There was a scene where the father of the Kim family was talking about having or not having a plan while living in a gymnasium after their underground home was flooded. This scene is exemplifying the unknowns of life. The way the Kim family went along with the handling of their circumstance of hardship before the employments at the Park family or after employment, there was still a sense of urgency of never giving up on their needs and desires. There’s a great deal of appreciating the now while trying to make the now better, and not worrying too much about what’s happening next because the now is the gateway to their future. Lastly, the Kim family and Park family demonstrate the necessity of keeping their spirits in good condition because there are always limitations that try to impede upon their success and growth. Even though the ending is slightly depressing, there is still some positivity on how the challenges of life can bring the best out of someone. Also, Ki-woo was not loyal to his friend because he became selfish, and kissed his friend’s crush, so maybe there is a testament to valuing your word to someone, a sense of loyalty.