My films are no different from the storyboards I draw. --Bong Joon-ho
Released in South Korea on May 30, 2019, "Parasite" won four awards at the 92nd Academy Awards, becoming the first film in South Korea to win the Palme d'Or.
As a country that dares to photograph the lives and class differences of the people at the bottom of society, there is a certain inevitability in the award of "Parasite", not only because of director Bong Joon-ho's superb shooting and performance, but also because of the film's high degree of restoration of the script.
We have encountered many screenwriters who like magic changes, and when the film is shown, they always want to send blades to the screenwriters when they can't meet their psychological expectations, and the structure, main plot and secondary plot presented in their works determine the quality of the film and the degree of audience love.
A good film not only needs a good director, a good script, but perhaps the most important thing is how to show the script in every detail of the film, rather than changing it at will.
The reason why it is said that there is an inevitability in the award of "Parasite" can be seen in the interview with director Bong Joon-ho of "Parasite: Original Script" produced by Houlang.
Bong Joon-ho said that the script of "Parasite" originally included the story of two families to symmetrize the class difference between poor families and rich families, until the appearance of the basement couple four years later changed the entire script structure, and finally presented the story between the three families.
The story changes perspective to narrate the contrasts at the class level from the perspective of the poor, making the whole plot of the struggle between the poor and the poor more dramatic.
The "Parasite: Original Script" and "Parasite: Movie Storyboard" launched by Houlang are the original appearance of the final script of the movie "Parasite", which includes the scenes not presented in the finished film, but the content of the deleted part does not affect the integrity of the entire plot, and even to some extent makes the script details more refined, deleting one point is less, adding one point is more, and the screenwriter can see the choice and director's thinking from the details.
In the film, Bong Joon-ho presents the huge gap between rich and poor and the class gap to the fullest, the logic is meticulous and the rhythm is perfect, the multi-faceted portrayal of different classes of characters is impressive, and the strong contrast between rich and poor makes the taste of the poor people the class contradiction throughout the film.
What does poor people taste like? In the eyes of the rich, that smell is a special smell for those who ride the subway; in the eyes of the poor, it is the smell of a semi-basement, and they dream of leaving here one day so that the smell will not be there.
As the flavor that runs through the script, it not only reflects the gap between the poor and the rich, but also the fuse of the conflict between the poor and the rich. The man and hostess could smell it when they sat in the back seat of the luxury car, and even their children could smell the same smell as the teacher and the others.
No matter how the Jin family of four disguises themselves as highly educated teachers, talented artists, skilled "old drivers" and Michelin-level chefs, they cannot hide the smell of poverty emanating from the inside out. However, they rely on "excellent" skills to win the trust of the innocent and kind hostess, replacing the original housekeeper and housekeeper husband as the "parasite" of the rich family.
"The script changes all the time, like a living creature."
In an interview with director Bong Joon-ho, Bong Joon-ho said that some lines were added through later stages of the script, such as the words of Kiser when the half-basement of a poor family was flooded and had to rest in a nearby gymnasium: "A plan that will never fail is no plan." ”
In a way, this sentence reflects why the poor will always be poor, because they have no plan for the future, but always like to live in the illusion of nothingness. Just like at the end of the film, Ki-woo is still fantasizing about trying to earn money to buy a rich man's big villa, so that the father who killed the man can walk out of the basement and enter the life of a rich man.
The contrasting plots of poverty and wealth, fantasy and reality, parasitism and invasion, competition and giving, etc. presented by the film under the careful layout of the original script make "Parasite" an open and polyhythmic film with huge class differences in reality, and from the degree of reduction, fineness and accuracy of the film, all show that "Parasite" is a carefully crafted film.