Starring Song Kang-ho, Choi Woo-shik, Park So-dam, Jang Hye-jin , Lee Sun-kyun , Cho Yeo-jeong , Jung Ji-so, Jung Hyeon-jun, Lee Jung-eun , Park Myung-hoon, Park Geun-rok, and Park Seo-joon 

Directed by Bong Joon ho

CJ Entertainment, out now

The Kim family work temp jobs, live in a sub basement and struggle to make ends meet. Endlessly optimistic father Ki-taek (Song Kang ho) and pragmatic mother Chung-sook (Jang Hye-jin) hold the family together. Cynical daughter Ki-jeong (Park So-dam) and dreamer son Ki-woo (Choi Woo-shik) help out where they can. Until a friend of Ki-woo’s gives him a job offer: tutor a local rich girl in English – and opportunities open up for the whole family…

Bong Joon ho’s previous, genre-centric work includes the likes of Okja and The Host, both of which are essential viewing. This isn’t as overtly genre but as the careful, bleakly comedic plot unfolds it soon becomes apparent that what you’re watching is changing minute to minute and what it frequently is, is a horror movie.

The family’s slow infiltration of the Park family’s life powers the first hour and there the film is both socially conscious and very funny. It plays like Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, complete with elaborate schemes, near misses and the sort of deadpan comic delivery that makes movies like this fly. It’s also at its most charming here, the family very much likable chancers who deserve a second shot.

That changes in the second hour.

There’s this frankly astonishing sequence of scenes which lasts most of that second hour. It begins with the old housekeeper returning to the house and finishes a string of violence that’s untidy, brutal and realistic. Along the way we discover that the director excels at farce, see the literal impact of the weather on the poorer classes and watch as the family slowly realize who they’re viewed as. We also discover no one in the movie is telling the truth, everyone has a secret and the foundations of their lives are built on those secrets. It’s equal parts funny, absurd, terrifying and tragic. It leads directly into an ending that’s aspirational and poignant and it’s all either horror or borderline horror.

Verdict: Parasite is an astonishing achievement of cinema. It’s vastly clever, completely relatable and terrifying. It places each card down methodically, makes each point with intelligence, grace and rage and moves through multiple genres to do it. Tinged with horror and made with extraordinary skill, it’s one of the best Best Picture Oscar winners in decades and it’s in cinemas now. 10/10

Alasdair Stuart