Parasite directed by Bong Joon Ho is a 2019 South Korean dark comedy thriller film that made history at the 92nd Academy Awards. It won 4 Oscars out of the 6 categories it was nominated in. Bong Joon Ho even went on to win Best Director beating the likes of Quentin Tarantino for Once upon a time…in Hollywood and Martin Scorsese for The Irishman. It also became the first Korean film to win the Palme d’Or at the Cannes film festival and the first to win with a unanimous vote since Blue Is the Warmest Colour (2013). Parasite also became the first non-English language film to win the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.
Here are 5 Unknown Facts about the Oscar-winning movie Parasite:
1. Parasite was inspired by Bong Joon Ho’s real life. He worked as a tutor for a wealthy family when he was in college and often felt like he was “spying” on them
Bong Joon Ho was inspired partially by his own life’s tales as he was a tutor who worked for a wealthy family as shown in the movie. He was even shown the family’s private sauna by his student at the time and went on to include that moment in his film.
2. The original title of the film was ‘The Décalcomanie’
Bong Joon Ho revealed to a news portal the title of Parasite was supposed to be The Decalcomanie and even explained why, “When you look at the final results of a decalcomania or decal, both sides look identical at a first glance. But if you look at it more closely, they’re not exactly the same. This kind of explains something about these two families.”
3. The film was supposed to be a play when Bong Joon-ho first came up with the idea in 2013
This might come as a surprise to many that the initial idea was that Parasite would be a play and the stage would be divided into two halves to showcase both the houses, the poor family and the wealthy family depicted in the film.
4. Despite dreaming it up at the end of the film, it would actually take Kim Ki-woo 540 years to buy the home his dad is trapped in, based on his average salary
If you’ve watched the film, you know towards the end Kim Ki-woo dreams of buying the house his father is trapped in so he can walk upstairs without any fear, but Bong Joon Ho reveals it would take him 540 years to buy the house given his current salary.
5. The word “ram-don” was created by the translator for the film and is a dish consisiting of two different types of instant noodles: black bean and spicy seafood flavor
The noodles are actually called ‘jjapaguri’ but it was too difficult to translate given the fact its a combination of two brand names.