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https://scmp.com/lifestyle/entertainment/article/3007278/cannes-film-festival-2019-palme-dor-sights-bong-joon-ho-new
Lifestyle/ Entertainment

Cannes Film Festival 2019: Palme d’Or in sights of Bong Joon-ho with new film Parasite

  • Film about an unemployed man who becomes obsessed with another family who are better off shows the extremes of South Korean society
  • It is Bong’s second time competing for the Palme d’Or at Cannes, after the selection of his adventure film Okja in 2017
South Korean director Bong Joon-ho speaks at a press conference for his film ‘Parasite’ in Seoul, South Korea. The film was selected to compete at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Photo: AFP

Social inequality – and the envy and violence that stems from it – is the core theme of acclaimed Korean film director Bong Joon-ho’s latest work Parasite, which is now in competition for the top prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

“I hope when viewers finish seeing the film, they go home with a lot of thoughts,” he said at a press conference in Seoul ahead of the prestigious film festival next month.

“I doubt foreign viewers would understand this film 100 per cent as it has a lot of details that only Koreans can understand. But at the same time, as its topic is something universal – the conflicts between the haves and have-nots – I hope it also strikes a chord with foreign viewers as well.”

The “tragicomedy” revolves around an unemployed young man who becomes entangled and obsessed with another family who are seemingly better off.

Song Kang-ho in a still from Parasite, the new film directed by Bong Joon-ho. Photo: CJ Entertainment
Song Kang-ho in a still from Parasite, the new film directed by Bong Joon-ho. Photo: CJ Entertainment

“It’s not easy for people with different backgrounds to live together in the same space. It is all the more so in a world where human relations [that are] based on coexistence and co-prosperity have collapsed and some people have to live like parasites, relying on others for their survival”, the director says of his seventh film.

“Who can then criticise a family who is getting crazy in [its] struggle to survive in this kind of world? They were not parasites in the beginning. They were our neighbours, friends and colleagues who were driven to the edge of a cliff.”

Bong’s internationally acclaimed films include The Host, a 2006 monster flick; Snowpiercer, a 2013 South Korean-Czech sci-fi action film based on French novel Le Transperceneige Jacques Lob; and Okja, a 2017 action adventure film. It is Bong’s second time competing for the Palme d’Or at Cannes, following the selection of his adventure film Okja in 2017.

A still from Bong’s 2017 adventure film Okja. Photo: Netflix
A still from Bong’s 2017 adventure film Okja. Photo: Netflix

But Okja sparked controversy at the international film festival as it was produced by the streaming giant Netflix which did not meet Cannes’ rules on theatrical distribution in France.

This film will represent Bong’s evolution and the upgrade of Korean movies as a whole Song Kang-ho who plays the lead role in The Parasites

Bong downplayed the possibility of his new film winning the Palme d’Or, as there are many great producers in competition whom he says he “admires deeply”. He says, though, that he always makes his film with a belief that “this one is better than my previous ones”.

In contrast to last year when eight films from Asia were among the 21 films in competition at Cannes, only two are from the region this year, the other being Wild Goose Lake (Nan Fang Che Zhan De Ju Hui) by Diao Yinan from China. Diao won the Berlin Golden Bear at the 2014 Berlin Film Festival for her work Black Coal Thin Ice.

Song Kang-ho, who also appeared in Bong’s Memories of Murder, The Host and Snowpiercer, plays Kim Ki-taek, the patriarch of the struggling family. Choi Woo-shik, who also appeared in Okja, stars as Kim’s son, who forges educational credentials to be hired as a live-in tutor in a rich family.

Song praises Bong for his “imagination and insights” and says: “This film will represent Bong’s evolution and the upgrade of Korean movies as a whole.”

CJ Entertainment, distributor of the film, will screen it in South Korea in May.