Year Related: 2019
Directed by: Bong Joon Ho
Starring: Song Kang-ho., Choi Woo-shik, Park So-dam, Chang Hyae-jin, Lee Sun-kyun, Cho Yeo-jeong, Jung Hyeon-jun
(R, 132min.)
Genre: Art House and International, Drama
Academy Awards (2020)

Best Picture
Best Director: Bong Joon Ho

Ki-taek: She's rich, but still nice.
Chung-sook: Not "rich, but still nice." She's nice because she's rich. Hell, if I had all this money. I'd be nice, too!

Think Downton Abbey transported to present day South Korea, but everything is downsized. The Lord of the manner here is a high tech CEO, and Downton’s loyal servants are just street-smart con artists.

Bong Joon Ho brings his work home to Korea in this pitch-black modern fairytale. Meet the Park Family: the picture of aspirational wealth. And the Kim Family, rich in street smarts but not much else. Be it chance or fate, these two houses are brought together and the Kims sense a golden opportunity. Masterminded by college-aged Ki-woo, the Kim children expediently install themselves as tutor and art therapist, to the Parks. Soon, a symbiotic relationship forms between the two families. The Kims provide "indispensable" luxury services while the Parks obliviously bankroll their entire household.

And, oh, how everyone is gushing over this film.

It earns a 99% positive rating over at Rotten Tomatoes and their critical consensus lavishes it with praise:

An urgent, brilliantly layered look at timely social themes, Parasite finds writer-director Bong Joon Ho in near-total command of his craft.”

Not to mention all the awards and buzz its is gathering as it sweeps its ways toward the Oscars, outdoing the more local acclaim Bong Joon Ho’s 2009 Mother and his 2013 Snowpiecer received. Mother is the best of the lot in Different Drummer’s estimation. (It won’t be the first time DD has disagreed with critics.)

Parasite’s life began at the Cannes Film Festival in May where, a few days after its world premiere, the movie became the first from South Korea to be awarded the prestigious Palme d’Or. –Deadline.com

Parasite is also nominated for Best International Feature Film (Best Foreign Film) as well as beingthe first Korean movie nominated for Best Picture, and only the sixth film not in English to take nominations in both categories.

Among Parasite’s six-strong haul of Oscar nominations, Bong is also nominated for Best Director and, along with co-writer Han Jin Won, Best Original Screenplay.

And it’s now available on Amazon Prime, Google Play, and Vudu for a fraction of what you’d pay at the cinema. So certainly see it.

***

The characters are lively and their ensemble performances terrific, even if they have little depth at their core. And perhaps you like a film where no one is likeable. Or one that has no real moral grounding. After all, Martin Scorsese’s critically acclaimed The Irishman has Robert De Niro playing the role that best suits his real personality (an amoral thug), and that doesn’t seem to have slowed it down any, not to mention Scorsese’s Goodfellas, his equally dissolute 1990 ode to wiseguys. And now we have a new film, The Gentlemen, dubbed “a gangster comedy,” with no irony intended.

Here are a few examples from Parasite to illustrate my point: Kim Ki-woo (Choi Woo-shik) is chosen by his friend to take over tutoring Da-hye (Jeong Ji-so) the girl of his dreams while he goes abroad to study. That is why he chooses his impoverished friend with little formal education over his college buddies, because he knows they will try to steal Da-hye’s affections. He trusts Ki-woo, who promises to keep tutoring sessions on the up and up. Neither the tutor nor Ki-woo have any qualms about forging college credentials to land Ki-woo the job as replacement tutor, and in no time, Ki-woo forgets his promises to his friend and starts his own romance with Da-hye.

Little by little the entire Kim family wheedle their way into household positions through fraud and deceit. We all like a good con game, of course:

Ki-taek: Wow, does Seoul University have a major in document forgery? Ki-jeong would be top of her class.

And the wealthy Park family members are easy marks:

Ki-taek: Rich people are naive. No resentments. No creases on them.
Chung-sook: It all gets ironed out. Money is an iron. Those creases all get smoothed out.

But these cons have a dark underbelly. The Kims wrongfully disgrace the trusted servants they replace, the vapid head of the wealthy Park family throwing them out on the street without notice. Particularly loathsome is planting panties in the chauffeur’s vehicle and framing him for having drug-induced sex there. While exploiting the housekeeper’s allergy to peaches in order to label her a TB carrier is equally odious.

Plot twists and surprises carry us breathlessly along and what is just funny at first becomes more and more depraved and violent, what several critics praise as a socially conscious “mutation.”

This film has the politically correct narrative, and that is what really matters, right? Parasite is all about class struggle, the haves and the have-nots, and the narcissism of wealthy capitalists, with a sly nod toward climate change. The irony of a South Korean director blaming the fat cats that prop up his life with nary a word about the absolute hellhole that lingers beyond the 39th parallel above his own country seems lost on director, writers, and critics alike. But does that surprise anyone?

That is, anyone with a brain.

–Kathy Borich
🥁🥁1/2

Film-Loving Foodie

Ok, Different Drummer has let you off easy, lately. Lots of luscious and easy to make cocktails and some super easy meals. But let’s get ready for some serious baking now. Especially if you are young and in love, hoping to impress your honey for Valentine’s Day.

Near the end of Parasite we are treated to a lavish birthday party for the spoiled son of the wealthy Park family. The Kim family is waiting on everyone, even as they are just recovering from a disastrous flood that has devastated most of the lower classes, who symbolically also live in the lower regions of the city of Seoul. The audience has seen that devastation first hand. Having slept in a crowded gym since their basement apartment is under water, and wearing clothes doled out to them, the Kims nevertheless do their best to help out a the extravagant affair.

What a contrast it is to their lives in the past 24 hours. Especially the perfect, white cream birthday cake holding court on the magnificent manicured lawn.

Social disparity aside, try your hand at this lovely dessert, Korean Cream Cake. It is as delicious as it is glorious.

Or skip the drudgery in the kitchen and buy one. Our local HEB makes some real beauties, even if they are not authentically Korean.

Korean Cream Cake

Ingredients

· Sponge cake

· 4 large eggs

· 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar

· 1/2 cup caster sugar (or finely processed granulated sugar), divided

· 1 cup cake flour

· 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

· 1/4 cup vegetable oil

· 3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

· Juice of 1/2 lemon

· 1 tablespoon water

· Simple syrup and frosting

· 1/4 cup water

· 1/4 cup granulated sugar

· Peel of 1/2 lemon

· 1 cup heavy cream

· 1/4 cup confectioners' sugar

· 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

· 1 pinch kosher salt

· 1 pint strawberries, hulled and sliced (or any seasonal fruit of your choosing, such as mandarin oranges or kiwi)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Use the base of a 6-inch aluminum cake pan (do not use nonstick) to trace a circle on a sheet of parchment paper. Cut out circle and place on the bottom of the cake pan. Cut another sheet of parchment paper 6 inches by 20 inches and nestle into the sides of the cake pan to form a collar. Do not grease the pan or the parchment.

2. Separate eggs carefully, putting whites in the bowl of a stand mixer and yolks in a large bowl. Whip egg whites with the whisk attachment on medium speed until soft peaks start to form. Add cream of tartar and mix until incorporated. Mix in 1/4 cup sugar, a little bit at a time, until incorporated. Continue whipping until stiff peaks have formed.

3. To the yolks, add the rest of the sugar and beat vigorously with a whisk until yolks are pale in color and fall in ribbons when the whisk is lifted. Add vegetable oil, vanilla extract, lemon juice, and water, and whisk to combine.

4. Sift cake flour and salt together 3 to 4 times in a separate bowl, then stir into yolk mixture, a little at a time, until incorporated.

5. Rewhip egg whites for a few seconds if needed to ensure stiff peaks. Using whisk, add one-third of the whites into the yolk mixture, using few and gentle strokes to incorporate the mixture. Add another third and stir in gently.

6. Switch to a spatula, and this time take the yolk mixture and add to the remaining one-third of the whites in the mixer bowl. Very gently (so as to not deflate the air incorporated into the whites), fold the batter until just combined and no white streaks remain.

7. Pour batter into the collared cake pan, stopping if the batter hits the top of the pan. Tap the cake pan on the counter a few times to release any air bubbles.

8. Bake for 30 to 45 minutes, until tester comes out clean. Cake should be well-browned on top, and the middle should spring back when lightly pressed. Carefully remove cake from the pan and parchment paper, using a knife to loosen the sides if needed. Cool on a wire rack.

9. While cake is cooling, make the simple syrup: In a small saucepan, bring 1/4 cup water, 1/4 cup granulated sugar, and lemon peel to a near boil, turning the heat off when the water just starts to simmer. Stir to dissolve sugar and place in fridge to cool.

10. Whip heavy cream in mixer until soft peaks form. Add vanilla and a pinch of salt to incorporate, then keep whipping on medium speed while adding in powdered sugar, a bit at a time, until stiff peaks form.

11. To assemble cake, trim the top brown pieces off the cake. Cut cake in half horizontally to make two layers. Place one layer on a cake stand, and brush some simple syrup over the top of the cake. Spread a layer of whipped cream, and then arrange strawberry slices to cover. Place second layer of cake, brush simple syrup, and ice your cake fully with whipped cream. Decorate the top of the cake with strawberry slices, and brush a bit more of simple syrup on the fruit. Chill in fridge before serving.

Food52.com