Ki-woo and his family, the Kims, live in a basement and barely
scrape a living folding pizza boxes. They get what seems to be a lucky break
when Ki-woo is offered the chance to become an English tutor for the daughter
of the rich Park family, his sister Ki-jeong forging a college student identity
to get him started. He then plans to bring the rest of his family into the
Parks’ employment, finding ways to get their household staff dismissed and
replaced. However this proves to be a risky strategy and it turns out the Kim
family are not the only ones with secrets.
Bong Joon-Ho’s thriller won the Palme D’Or at Cannes last
year and went on to win the Best Picture Oscar – the first non-English-language
film to do so. It was also panned by Donald Trump (so far the only Home Alone 2 cast member to be impeached). It’s an extraordinary movie worthy
of all these accolades, hitting many different notes – comedy, intrigue, heist,
psychodrama, thriller and tragedy – while still telling a well-written and
compelling story accelerating towards a dramatic finale.
The acting
is superb, often understated rather than melodramatic. Many performances stand
out, particularly Song Kang-ho as the father of the Kims. I thought Cho
Yeo-jeong’s performance as the impressionable Mrs. Park could have been played
purely for comedy value but instead she comes across as sympathetic even when
she falls for every trick or scam Ki-woo and the others can come up with, and it
becomes clear that she is driven by her own insecurities.
Everyone in this story has different insecurities, and this
is one of the many ways the movie explores its main theme of the social divide. It has a lot to say about this, and is far more interesting than simply moaning about the disproportionate wealth of the 1%,
although the attitudes of the Park family towards poor people are made clear in
some very tense scenes.
As with Bong Joon-Ho’s horror movie The Host, reviewed here
and also starring Song Kang-ho, this movie centres on a family rather than the loners,
romantic couples, friendship groups or mis-paired workers that feature in
Western movies. It's fair to say that the Kims are less dysfunctional than the family of the Host. I don’t know enough about Korean culture to know if this is
reflective, perhaps of a stronger family-orientated culture or a typical theme
of Korean movies. Train To Busan, another Korean horror movie directed by Yeon
Sang-ho, reviewed here, centres on a father-daughter bond.
I enjoyed this movie from start to finish, and no doubt Bong
Joon-Ho will be happy to add the coveted Sci-Fi Gene three stars out of five to
his packed trophy shelf.
Score: 3 out of 5 stars
All movies reviewed on the Sci-Fi Gene blog are given a
score of 3 out of 5 stars.
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