History YMMV / Parasite2019

* AwardSnub:
** The film and crew racked up a hefty number of nominations and wins at the 2020 Oscars. While it made history as the first non-English-language film to win Best Picture, it also accomplished the rare, dubious feat of winning Best Picture without any nominations in the acting categories, becoming just the 12th film to do so (and just the fifth in the last 60 years, after ''Film/TheLastEmperor'', ''Film/{{Braveheart}}'', ''Film/TheLordOfTheRingsTheReturnOfTheKing'' and ''Film/SlumdogMillionaire''). This was especially glaring for ''Parasite'', which has been widely praised for having a number of strong acting performances. Song Kang-ho, as an industry vet and [[ProductionPosse frequent presence in Bong Joon-ho's acclaimed films]], plus having received some awards from film critic groups in the lead-up to Oscar season, probably had the best chance at a nomination, but didn't get the nod. Some observers felt the film's EnsembleCast may have worked against it, making it difficult to single out individual performances for awards. Others thought Neon, the film's US distributor, didn't push hard enough for acting nominations in their campaigning.

** With, of all movies, ''[[Film/Joker2019 Joker]]''! It helps that both films struggle with themes of morally gray characters and a subtle critique of EatTheRich, alongside both being {{Sleeper Hit}}s due to word-of-mouth. Even with ''Parasite'' winning the Oscar for Best Picture (something ''Joker'' fans wanted), the fanbase nevertheless congratulated Bong Jong-Hoo, especially for a foreign movie to succeed at such a caliber.

** RESPECT!

** "Once you overcome the one-inch tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films."[[note]]Bong's acceptance speech (translated by his interpreter Sharon Choi) for receiving Golden Globe for Best International Film. Many internet denizens interpreted this as a TakeThat to American public's disdain for subtitled international movies. Oddly enough, it become a popular thing to quote around since Americans tend to [[CulturalCringe cringe]] at [[ForeignRemake Hollywood remakes]] of non-American movies. Likewise, it has been used by anime fans to justify their instance on the SubbingVsDubbing debate.[[/note]]

* ValuesDissonance: On a minor level, the extravagance and spaciousness of the Parks home is better understood in South Korea and other Asian countries where the standard of living space is much tighter. In western countries it would make for a very impressive apartment but may come across more like a well-kept townhome.

* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotPolitical: CapitalismIsBad and economic inequality are major themes of the film, but they're not the only themes. A lot of the HypeBacklash has been because some people go into it expecting it to be solely a political commentary, when it's actually a BlackComedy[=/=]{{Thriller}} GenreMashup that's meant to be enjoyed on a cinematic level, with the capitalism-related material as a context for the story.

** [[spoiler: '''''[[DownerEnding The ending]].''''' Ki-woo realizes his father is alive and sending Morse code signals from the former Park mansion, but must stay there for arguably the rest of his life. Ki-woo sends his father a letter, stating he will one day finally have enough money from a good education to buy the house and free him from that prison, with a HopeSpot where we see Ki-woo and Chung-sook looking over the newly bought property and reuniting with Ki-taek after he leaving the bunker...only to this be a simple TragicDream by Ki-woo, still living in their small basement home. It's also been sadly confirmed by Bong Joon-ho that despite Ki-woo's good graces, there is no way he would be able to acquire the house]].

** During the flood, Ki-jeong enters the semi-basment's flooded bathroom, where the toilet is spewing black sewage. She sits on the toilet cover and smokes a cigarette in a futile effort to prevent more sewage from spewing into the room.

** This movie won UsefulNotes/PalmeDOr almost a year after Hirokazu Koreeda, who's a good acquaitance with Bong and from the neighboring country of Japan, won the same award for ''Film/{{Shoplifters}}'', which shares the same premise of a family of petty criminals trying to survive in poverty. This led many critics and journalists to consider the former as SpiritualSuccessor/[[SpiritualAntithesis Antithesis]] of the latter.

* WhatAnIdiot:
** The Parks leave for a camping trip a few hours before a thunderstorm. They clearly didn't check the weather forecast before departing for their trip!
** The Parks go camping outdoors (because Da-song insisted on it), and Chung-sook is left in charge of the house on the promise that only she will be in the house. The Kim family then throw a celebration party inside the Parks' house eating up their food, drinking their wine and using their bathtub, TV and Wi-Fi.\\
'''But Then''': Rain occurs. Plus lightning.\\
'''You'd Expect''': The Kims to pull an OhCrap reaction, realize that the Parks will cancel their camping trip because of rain, quickly clean up their own mess and for Ki-Taek, Ki-woo and Ki-jeong to hide since they're not allowed in the house outside of their jobs.\\
'''Instead''': They just admire the rain as a sight of beauty and keep discussing on their scheme on how to keep the Parks' house to themselves in the future such as by suggesting to Ki-woo that he marry Da-hye. This of course leads to the trouble of their old housemaid Moon-gwang knocking on the door begging to be let in.\\
'''You'd Then Expect''': For them to simply ignore Moon-gwang and not acknowledge her, since she poses an immediate threat to their scheme to live off the Parks' own house and money, and it was hard enough getting her kicked out of the Parks' in the first place.[[labelnote:note]]Granted, the Kims were pretty drunk and relaxed at this point and no one would ever have expected anything like Moon-gwang's shocking secret.[[/labelnote]]\\
'''Instead''': Kim Chung-sook allows Moon-gwang into the house during the rainstorm. Moon-gwang takes her to the hidden part of the house to show her TheReveal of her husband hidden underneath.\\
'''You’d Expect''': The rest of the Kim family to stay upstairs and hide. It is INCREDIBLY dangerous to get caught by anyone, and that includes Moon-gwang. They had good reason to be curious about what Moon-gwang was revealing, but surely they could have been patient and waited for Kim Chung-sook to tell them later after the coast was clear.\\
'''Instead''': They all hide in the stairwell to overhear the conversation, even worse, clumsily leaning over one another to get a closer listen. Unsurprisingly, once one of them leans in too close, the entire family tumbles down the stairs and lands in a heap directly in front of Moon-gwang.\\
'''And Then''': Kim Wi-woo says “dad” in response to his injury, revealing that they are all connected as a family to Moon-gwang. Granted, one can’t control what they say by impulse from an injury, but the point is that they shouldn’t have taken that risk to overhear the conversation in the first place when the stakes were so high. From there, it only goes FromBadToWorse as absolutely everything falls apart.

** When the Kim family try to get [[spoiler:Moon-gwang]] fired from the Parks, they claim that she has tuberculosis rather than the peach allergy she has, and use hot sauce to fake her blood. Ki-taek's DullSurprise [[https://gifittomebaby.com/nggallery/2019_parasite/Parasite2019-15-bloodynapkin.gif look]] as he dramatically shows Yeon-kyo the "blood"-soaked napkin is especially icing on the cake.

* MalignantPlotTumor:
** Early in the movie the fact that the Kim family all shares the same smell due to their living conditions is treated as a footnote. Overhearing a conversation between the Parks about his smell causes Ki-taek to become increasingly conscious of their reactions to his smell, largely forgetting other issues like [[spoiler:the couple in the bunker]]. It eventually reaches the point that [[spoiler:Ki-taek murders Mr. Park over a StinkSnub in the middle of the climactic scene with Guen-se]].

** With, of all movies, ''[[Film/Joker2019 Joker]]''! It helps that both films struggle with themes of [[spoiler: morally gray characters]] and a subtle critique of EatTheRich, alongside both being {{Sleeper Hit}}s due to word-of-mouth. Even with ''Parasite'' winning the Oscar for Best Picture (something ''Joker'' fans wanted), the fanbase nevertheless congratulated Bong Jong-Hoo, especially for a foreign movie to succeed at such a caliber.

** [[https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/ki-taek-from-parasite-driving Ki-taek driving]] [[note]]Reaction image macro based on a scene where Yeon Kyo discussing his smell on the phone as Ki-Taek, who just lost his home from the flood, drives her. Online, people use the image of Ki-Taek driving her to express feelings of class resentment.[[/note]]

** [[spoiler: Geun-sae hitting Ki-woo on the head with Ki-woo's stone, then later stabbing Ki-jeong in the middle of Da-song's birthday party, causing a chaos.]]

** In original Korean, the pastry that [[spoiler: Geun-sae sold at his bankrupted shop]] was a Taiwanese-style Castella, a cake originated in Portugal that's popular in Japan. In English subtitle, this is translated as Taiwanese cake.

** The underground home the Kims are living is called "반지하" (''Banjiha'') in Korean, which literally means "semi-underground". This is translated in English subtitle as "semi-basement". The same happens in the Japanese translation, and in fact, [[TheForeignSubtitle the Japanese subtitle of the film]] is named ''Banchika no Kazoku'' ("Semi-basement-dwelling family").

** It's already beloved in its home country, but it became an instant SacredCow with France's Cannes Film Festival awarding the movie their top prize but also the Oscar giving it their Best Picture award, making it the first Best Picture Oscar winner with non-English language in history.

*** Might not negate the point of the movie, it's been written that many impoverished people have diets and habits that wouldn't be considered healthy, mostly due to lack of access to [[https://www.refinery29.com/en-gb/clean-eating-class-issue healthy food]], [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diseases_of_poverty health care]], and [[https://www.amazon.com/Against-Health-Became-Morality-Biopolitics/dp/0814795935 information about food or to indulge in something that makes them feel good even for a little]] ([[https://www.intelligenteconomist.com/lipstick-effect/ "the Lipstick Effect"]], named after there was a huge demand for lipsticks during UsefulNotes/TheGreatDepression because it made women feel good even if they didn't know they would pay the rent on time or have something in their bellies).

** Even minor characters such as Min, who's presented as a wonderful friend, are not exempt from this. There are viewers who have expressed disgust for his CondescendingCompassion towards Ki-woo and the fact that he's a considerably older man essentially grooming an underage girl (Da-hye). That said, again, it's probably to be expected of a film filled to the brim with incredibly layered GreyAndGrayMorality.

** With, of all movies, ''Film/Joker2019''! It helps that both films struggle with themes of [[spoiler: morally gray characters]] and a subtle critique of EatTheRich, alongside both being {{Sleeper Hit}}s due to word-of-mouth. Even with ''Parasite'' winning the Oscar for Best Picture (something ''Joker'' fans wanted), the fanbase nevertheless congratulated Bong Jong-Hoo, especially for a foreign movie to succeed at such a caliber.

* HypeBacklash: Perhaps unsurprising, given just how much constant praise and success has been heaped on the movie. A growing number of people have left the film wondering what all the fuss is about, or even accusing the people who praise the film of [[ConfirmationBias only doing so because it flatters their socio-political views]] (or at least, [[{{Applicability}} they perceive it to]]).

* DarknessInducedAudienceApathy: As noted by the UnintentionallyUnsympathetic section below, it's really hard to care about either the Kim or Park families who are unlikable in their own way. The Kims manipulate their employers, exploit a woman's deathly allergy, gluttonously gorge themselves on the Park's food and treat other poor people like garbage. The Parks are elitists who are insensitive to suffering and act cheerful about a rainstorm while oblivious to the fact the storm left many homeless, the Kims included. It's easy to see why many find the film too mean-spirited.

* MoralEventHorizon: The Kim family's attempts at infiltrating the Park's help becomes more malevolent as the film progress. Initially it's limited to just victimless posturing, but later they move to ousting the existing help. The event horizon was arguably crossed when [[spoiler:Chung-sook threatens to call the police on Moon-gwang for sheltering her husband in the basement of the house, as it leads to the open conflict between the two families which does not de-escalate. The horizon is definitely crossed by the point where Chung-sook kills Moon-gwang by kicking her down the stairs. When Ki-woo attempts to make amends to the other family by offering them his Scholar Stone, he discovers that Moon-gwang is dead, and accidentally unleashes Geun-se onto his family.]]

** That steak that is cooked in with Da-song's instant noodles? That's Hanwoo, a very expensive form of beef that is only found in Korea. It's the Korean equivalent to Japan's Kobe beef, a fitting ingredient to be found in the Park family mansion. The noodle dish itself is a cheap mix of jjapaguri, a mix of '''Chapa'''getti (spicy black bean sauce) and Neo'''guri''' (seafood broth) brand noodles that is a common dish in Korea for the poor and young. In a non-Korean context, it's along the lines of putting Black Truffles onto a Big Mac, or Cheez Whiz on a filet mignon.

** That steak that is cooked in with Da-song's instant noodles? That's Hanwoo, a very expensive form of beef that is only found in Korea. It's the Korean equivalent to Japan's Kobe beef, a fitting ingredient to be found in the Park family mansion. The noodle dish itself is a cheap mix of jjapaguri, a mix of '''Chapa'''getti (spicy black bean sauce) and Neo'''guri''' (seafood broth) brand noodles that is a common dish in Korea for the poor and young. In a non-Korean context, it's along the lines of putting Black Truffles onto a Big Mac.

** It's very common to come across people who also liked ''Film/Shoplifters'' for sharing the similar premise with this movie.

* FriendlyFandoms: With, of all movies, ''Film/Joker2019''! It helps that both films struggle with themes of [[spoiler: morally gray characters]] and a subtle critique of EatTheRich, alongside both being {{Sleeper Hit}}s due to word-of-mouth. Even with ''Parasite'' winning the Oscar for Best Picture (something ''Joker'' fans wanted), the fanbase nevertheless congratulated Bong Jong-Hoo, especially for a foreign movie to succeed at such a caliber.

* HypeBacklash: Perhaps unsurprising, given just how much constant, praise has been heaped on the movie. A growing number of people have left the film wondering what all the fuss is about, or even accusing the people who praise the film of [[ConfirmationBias only doing so because it flatters their socio-political views]] (or at least, [[{{Applicability}} they perceive it to]]).

'''You'd Then Expect''': For them to simply ignore Moon-gwang and not acknowledge her, since she poses an immediate threat to their scheme to live off the Parks' own house and money, and it was hard enough getting her kicked out of the Parks' in the first place.\\