Parasite Ending Explained You Cant Go Wrong With No Plans
The Big Picture
- Parasite explores greed and class divides, showcasing the clash between the wealthy Park family and the struggling Kim family.
- The film's shocking twist reveals a hidden man living in the Park family's basement, leading to chaos and bloodshed.
- Parasite offers a bleak and realistic ending, highlighting the idea of wealth as a prison and economic immobility as the new norm.
Bong Joon-ho’s masterful Academy Award winner, Parasite, is a brutal satire about wealth disparity and the lengths we're willing to go to for family. One of only three movies to win both the Best Picture Oscar and the Palme d'Or, Parasite shifts from a biting dramedy to a suspenseful thriller in its second act, proving Joon-ho's affinity for humor, horror, and everything in between. Set in Seoul, South Korea, the movie follows the Kim family, who work low-income jobs and struggle to make ends meet. When son Ki-Woo (Choi Woo-shik) secures a gig tutoring the wealthy Park family's young daughter (Jung Ji-so), the Kims slowly begin to infiltrate the home, enjoying the unfamiliar luxuries afforded to the Parks. However, when the Parks' idyllic lifestyle proves to house a disturbing secret, chaos and bloodshed ensue, and we're left wondering who the parasites really are. So, how does Parasite end, and what does it mean?
Parasite
RComedySatireDramaGreed and class discrimination threatens the newly formed symbiotic relationship between the wealthy Park family and the destitute Kim clan.
Release Date May 8, 2019 Director Bong Joon-ho Cast Seo Joon Park , Kang-ho Song , Seon-gyun Lee , Yeo-Jeong Jo , Woo-sik Choi , Hye-jin Jang Runtime 132 minutes Main Genre Drama Writers Bong Joon-ho , Jin Won Han ExpandWhat Is 'Parasite' About?
In Parasite, the Kim family's quest to overtake the Parks' home is no simple feat, and they do so by slyly getting the Parks to hire them without realizing that they're all related. Once Ki-woo gets his foot in the door by becoming Da-hye's tutor — with a certificate forged by his clever sister, Ki-jung (Park So-dam) — the pieces begin to fall strategically into place. Ki-woo uses his standing to introduce Ki-jung to the Parks, with her posing as a sought-after art therapist. Mr. and Mrs. Park (Lee Sun-kyun and ChoYeo-jeong) quickly hire Ki-jung to help their young son, Da-song (Jung Hyeon-jun), who has recently been traumatized after seeing a "ghost" in their kitchen.
The Kim kids then frame the Parks’ driver for being a creep, which allows them to bring in their own father, Ki-taek (Song Kang-ho), for the job. Finally, the Parks let go of their longtime housekeeper, Moon-gwang (Lee Jung-eun), after Ki-jung exploits Moon-gwang's peach allergy to make it look like she has tuberculosis, paving the way for the Kims’ mother, Chung-sook (Jang Hye-jin), to get the gig. The Parks don’t learn that the Kims are related, and the Kims enjoy their time in the Park house, particularly when the wealthy family leaves for a trip.
Who Is the Man in the Basement in 'Parasite?'
Everything seems to be going fine until Moon-gwang returns to the house, claiming to have left something behind. In Parasite's iconic, shocking twist, said "something" turns out to be Moon-gwang's husband, Geun-se (Park Myung-hoon), who, unbeknownst to the Parks, is living in a secret bunker in the basement, and is revealed to be the "ghost" that Da-Song saw one night when he was sneaking into the kitchen for food.
When the Kims threaten to expose and expel Geun-se, Moon-gwang in turn threatens to expose their familial status to the Parks, which she learns of after hearing them talk to one another. For a while, Moon-gwang and Geun-se get to live the high life until they are overpowered by the Kims, leading to an altercation that leaves Moon-gwang dead and Geun-se once again left in the basement. The Parks return early from their trip due to a storm, so the Kims are forced to leave and sleep in a gymnasium because their basement apartment has been flooded.
What Happens to the Family in 'Parasite'?
Parasite's pulse-pounding climactic scene finds the Kims being invited to Da-song's birthday party at the Park house. Ki-woo sneaks into the basement to finish off Geun-se once and for all by bludgeoning him with a scholar's rock, but Geun-se, wanting to avenge his wife, escapes by violently cracking Ki-woo in the head instead. Continuing his rampage, a bloodied and terrifying Geun-se bursts out into the sunshine of the backyard birthday party, fatally stabbing Ki-jung and re-traumatizing Da-song before being killed by Ki-taek. When Ki-taek hears Mr. Park, talking about Geun-se's "poor man's smell" (a trait that Mrs. Park earlier commented on regarding Ki-taek), he kills him, too. As the party devolves into hysteria, Ki-taek flees the scene. Ki-woo wakes up sometime later in the hospital having sustained a severe head injury, with his sister dead, his father missing, and himself and his mother being convicted of fraud.
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Sometime later, Ki-woo returns to look at the Park house, where another family has since moved in. He discovers a light flickering in Morse Code, deciphering the message and learning that his father is now living in the house's basement, having had to go into hiding after killing Mr. Park. We then see a sequence where Ki-woo makes enough money to buy the house and free his father. However, it's quickly revealed that the scenes of Ki-woo buying the house are just in his imagination. We’re brought back into reality by the closing shots of the film, not of Ki-woo in the house freeing his father as part of a victorious montage. Parasite ends with Ki-woo exactly where he started, back in his own basement and just as imprisoned as his father, but by economic circumstances rather than legal ones.
Why Is the Movie Called 'Parasite'?
CloseParasite's double-ending is what makes it such a gut punch: it’s about a fantasy. We know that Ki-woo will never earn enough money to buy the house and free his father, because Parasite shows that economic mobility is dead. The Kims aren’t a “lazy” family who are simply avoiding hard work. They may be conniving and duplicitous, but they don’t expect others to do their jobs for them, which is more than can be said for the Parks. The Kims’ station in life is set, and it’s only through deceit that they can even come close to the wealth that the Parks possess. For their part, the movie asks if the Parks — wealthy idiots who are dependent on the lower class — are the real “parasites,” who give nothing back and don’t really care about anyone other than themselves. When the slums get flooded and people who have lost what little they had are sleeping in a gym, the Parks are more concerned about their son's birthday party than the well-being of the people they employ.
'Parasite's Bleak Ending Turns Wealth Into a Prison
The bleakness of Parasite's ending comes from the fact that we know freeing Ki-taek is impossible. Granted, he could just turn himself in, but then he’d just be in another prison, or he’d get the death penalty, so he may as well stay in the basement. The prison of wealth is what entraps the Kims in the first place. Yes, they are “parasites” in a sense, since they feed off the wealthy Park family, but the lavishness of the Parks’ wealth was never going to come to the Kims. The idea of wealth becomes both a fantasy and a prison for the Kim family — something they’ll chase but never achieve. They’re stuck where they are: Ki-taek in a basement, and Ki-woo only able to look at the house from a distance.
These days, there’s a lot of talk about “income inequality”, which is an oddly hopeful phrase, because it implies that we can just rebalance the scales somehow through economic programs and government intervention. Bong Joon-ho's Parasite is far more pessimistic, arguing that economic immobility is the new normal, and that those who are born poor will die poor and those who are rich will die rich. The fantasy of upward economic mobility is Ki-woo’s fantasy. If it was as simple as just getting rich and buying that house, why would he have been living in a slum in the first place? It’s a nice thought that he could become rich and buy the house to free his father, and they’d all live happily ever after, but that’s never going to happen. We’re all trapped where we are.
Parasite is available to stream on Max in the U.S.
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