100 Fun Facts About Parasite Movie

Who directed Parasite?

He co-wrote it with Han Jin-won, his production assistant on Snowpiercer.

What kind of home do the Kims live in?

The banjiha is typical for poorer Seoul residents, and the first to flood in a monsoon.

What gift does family friend Min-hyuk bring the Kims?

It's meant to promise wealth, and later becomes a weapon.

What job does Ki-woo take over from Min-hyuk?

Min-hyuk trusts him because he likes Da-hye and wants to ask her out later.

What English name does Ki-woo use with the Parks?

He poses as a Yonsei University student with a certificate forged by his sister.

What role does Ki-jung, as 'Jessica', take in the Park household?

Da-song has been traumatised by seeing a 'ghost' in the kitchen.

How do the Kims get rid of the Parks' chauffeur Yoon?

Ki-taek is hired as his replacement.

What allergy do the Kims exploit to oust housekeeper Moon-gwang?

It was inspired by one of Bong's university friends; the Parks are told she has tuberculosis.

Who is hiding in the secret bunker under the Park house?

He's been hiding from loan sharks and is the 'ghost' Da-song saw.

Who built the bunker?

He kept its existence secret from the Parks; the film names him Namgoong Hyeonja.

Why do the Parks come home early from their camping trip?

The same rain floods the Kims' flat with sewage.

Where do the Kims shelter after their flat floods?

They're alongside other displaced people.

What is the occasion for the garden party in the climax?

Mrs Park organises it on impulse the day after the storm.

What does Geun-sae use to bludgeon Ki-woo?

Ki-woo had carried it into the bunker with intentions unknown.

How does Chung-sook kill Geun-sae?

He had just stabbed Ki-jung in front of the party guests.

What finally provokes Ki-taek into stabbing Mr Park?

Mr Park recoils at Geun-sae's smell while ordering Ki-taek to drive.

How does Ki-taek communicate from the bunker at the end?

Ki-woo spots it while spying on the house, now owned by a foreign family.

Who plays Kim Ki-taek?

He's Bong's frequent leading man, from Memories of Murder to The Host.

Who plays Mr Park?

Cho Yeo-jeong plays his wife Yeon-gyo.

Who plays Ki-woo?

He also sings the end-credits song, 'A Glass of Soju', written by Bong.

Who plays Ki-jung?

Bong describes her as the family member who assimilates most easily into the wealthy world.

Which K-drama star has a cameo as Min-hyuk?

The Itaewon Class star turned up for a brief cameo.

What did Bong originally write Parasite as?

A theatre actor friend encouraged him while he was making Snowpiercer.

What personal experience inspired the story?

He said it felt like infiltrating the private lives of strangers.

Which 1960 Korean film did Bong cite as an influence?

It's a 'domestic Gothic' about household help disrupting a middle-class family.

Which real 1930s French crime influenced the story?

Christine and Léa Papin were live-in maids.

What word did subtitler Darcy Paquet coin for jjapaguri?

It's a mix of Nongshim's Chapagetti and Neoguri; the English print shows packets labelled 'ramyeon' and 'udon'.

Which university did the subtitles substitute for Seoul National University?

Paquet thought Harvard would be 'too obvious' and knew Bong's affinity for the UK.

How was the Park house created?

The ground floor and garden were built on an outdoor lot; the view beyond the garden was VFX.

Which outdated software did editor Yang Jin-mo cut the film on?

The program hadn't been updated since 2011.

Which Handel opera is excerpted in the score?

Jung Jae-il's score also uses Gianni Morandi's 1964 song 'In ginocchio da te'.

Which festival gave Parasite its world premiere and top prize?

It was the first Korean film to win the Palme d'Or.

Which US distributor acquired the film at the 2018 American Film Market?

It expanded the release to over 2,000 cinemas after the Oscars, despite the film already being on home video.

How many Oscars did Parasite win?

Picture, Director, Original Screenplay and International Feature.

Parasite was the first Best Picture winner of what kind?

It was also the first Korean film to receive any Oscar recognition.

Which film led that year's nominations with eleven?

It won two; 1917 won three.

Bong was the second person to collect four Oscars in one night since whom?

Disney did it at the 1954 ceremony.

Which director did Bong pause to honour in his acceptance speech, drawing an ovation?

Scorsese wrote him afterwards: 'You've done well. Now rest. But don't rest for too long.'

Which film won both the Palme d'Or and Best Picture 65 years before Parasite?

The Lost Weekend had done it earlier, under the Grand Prix name.

The film also became the first non-English-language film to win which organisation's ensemble award?

That was Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.

Where did The New York Times rank Parasite in its 2025 list of the 21st century's best films?

The 2022 Sight and Sound poll had it as the 90th best film of all time.

Roughly how much did Parasite gross worldwide on an $11.4M budget?

It was the first Bong film to pass $100 million.

Who is credited as Bong Joon Ho's co-writer on Parasite?

Han had been Bong's production assistant on Snowpiercer and turned his 15-page treatment into three drafts.

Which camera did cinematographer Hong Kyung-pyo shoot Parasite on?

Filming ran from 18 May to 19 September 2018 around Seoul and in Jeonju, using Angenieux zoom lenses.

What is the name of the fictional architect who designed the Park house?

Production designer Lee Ha-jun planned the house's form around how this invented previous owner would have designed it.

Which 2013 film was the last before Parasite to win the Palme d'Or by unanimous vote?

Parasite was also the first South Korean film ever to take the Cannes top prize.

Who performs 'Soju han jan', the original song heard over the end credits?

The actor who plays Ki-woo sings the song, which Bong himself wrote.

Which festival premiered the black-and-white edition of Parasite in January 2020?

The monochrome version actually predated the colour film's Cannes premiere; Criterion released both in October 2020.

Which streaming service secured exclusive US rights to Parasite from April 2020?

Amazon streamed it outside the US from March 2020, and it reached Netflix in the US and UK only in February 2025.

Where did Parasite place in the 2022 Sight and Sound critics' poll of the greatest films?

The Writers Guild of America ranked its screenplay the fourth-greatest of the 21st century so far.

In Parasite, the Kim siblings roam their home holding phones up to the ceiling in search of what?

Unlocked Wi-Fi pinched from neighbours and nearby businesses keeps the jobless family online, an early sign of how they live off whatever is within reach.

Early in Parasite, the jobless Kim family earns a little cash at home by folding what?

Pizza boxes earn the Kims a scolding as well as cash: the parlour's owner tells the family off for folding them badly.

At a 2020 rally, Donald Trump said which 1939 film deserved Best Picture more than Parasite?

Gone with the Wind and Sunset Boulevard were the films he named as worthier winners, though neither was in the running: they were released in 1939 and 1950.

Jung Jae-il, who composed the score for Parasite, went on to write the music for which Netflix hit?

Squid Game, released two years after Parasite, brought him an Emmy nomination for its main title theme.

Sharon Choi became an unexpected star of Parasite's awards season by doing which job at Bong's side?

Interpreter Sharon Choi, a filmmaker herself, put his speeches into English so deftly that IndieWire named her the MVP of Oscar season.

Which long-running animated series parodied Parasite in a segment of its 2021 Halloween special?

The Simpsons sent Bart to work for Rainier Wolfcastle's rich family in a Treehouse of Horror segment named after Bong himself.

In Parasite, which member of the Kim family replaces Moon-gwang as the Parks' housekeeper?

The mother, Chung-sook, is the last of the Kims to be hired, which puts the whole family on the payroll without the Parks knowing they are related.

Parasite made Bong the second Asian winner of the Best Director Oscar, after which filmmaker?

Ang Lee, the Taiwanese director of Brokeback Mountain, had been the first, and he won the prize again for Life of Pi.

Which science-fiction film starring Robert Pattinson was Bong's first feature after Parasite?

Mickey 17 casts him as a disposable space-colony worker who is cloned afresh every time he dies, in an adaptation of Edward Ashton's novel Mickey7.

In Parasite, the Kims trick Mrs Park into believing her housekeeper has which contagious disease?

Tuberculosis is the lie that costs the long-serving Moon-gwang her job, and it clears the way for one more Kim to join the household staff.

In Parasite, what does young Da-song believe he once saw in the family kitchen?

A ghost is what the boy takes the figure for, and the fright brought on a seizure that his parents treat as a lasting trauma.

Da-song, the Parks' young son in Parasite, is obsessed with toys and replicas of which people?

Native Americans fascinate the boy, and Bong said the point was that a long, complicated history had been reduced to a rich child's hobby and decoration.

In Parasite, what does young Da-song notice that the newly hired Kims all have in common?

Their smell is the one thing the family cannot disguise, and the film keeps returning to it as its mark of class right up to the violent climax.

How does the sacked housekeeper Moon-gwang gain a hold over the Kim family midway through Parasite?

She films them on her phone after the eavesdropping Kims accidentally give themselves away, then threatens to expose the whole deception to the Parks.

At the end of Parasite, Ki-woo writes a letter vowing to free his father by doing what?

Buying the house is the plan, but Bong said the final shot of Ki-woo back in the family's old home was meant to show that he never will.

The idea for Parasite came to Bong in 2013 while he was at work on which Chris Evans film?

Snowpiercer, his thriller about a train whose passengers are divided by social class, was being made when the idea for another story of rich and poor arrived.

Miky Lee, who helped accept Parasite's Best Picture Oscar, is a grandchild of which firm's founder?

Samsung founder Lee Byung-chul was her grandfather, and as Parasite's executive producer she had championed Bong's films for years.

Winning Best Director for Parasite, Bong thanked which fellow nominee for praising his early films?

Quentin Tarantino had supported and praised Bong's earlier films long before the Academy noticed them, a debt Bong chose to acknowledge from the stage.

Which network announced in 2020 that it was developing a limited series based on Parasite?

HBO planned a six-hour story set between the scenes of the film, and Bong said it would keep the title Parasite.

Which Hollywood veteran opened the final envelope and announced Parasite as Best Picture?

Jane Fonda handed over the last award of a ceremony that ran without a host for the second year in a row.

Lee Jung-eun, Parasite's housekeeper Moon-gwang, voiced which creature in Bong's earlier film Okja?

A giant pig named Okja, genetically modified in the story, was her voice role, eight years after she and Bong first worked together.

Bong named the rich man's house in which 1963 Kurosawa thriller as a visual influence on Parasite?

High and Low sets a shoe executive's house on a hill overlooking the slum where the kidnapper who targets him lives, a layout Parasite echoes.

Parasite's English subtitles replace the Korean chat app KakaoTalk with which better-known rival?

WhatsApp stood in because, as the translator put it, a joke only works when viewers understand it at once.

Lee Ha-jun earned an Oscar nomination for which part of the making of Parasite?

Production design took Lee to abandoned villages awaiting demolition, which he photographed for reference, and he wrote backstories for the Kims' neighbours.

Parasite lost the Oscar for Film Editing to which fellow Best Picture nominee?

Ford v Ferrari, the Le Mans racing drama, took the prize; Parasite's editor had stitched different takes together inside single shots to widen his choices.

Which director chaired the festival jury that voted unanimously to give Parasite the Palme d'Or?

Alejandro Iñárritu, the Mexican filmmaker, presided over the main competition jury that year; no Korean film had won the prize before.

Parasite was the first film to win which Oscar category under the new name it took in 2020?

International Feature became the category's title from the 2020 ceremony, after the Academy's committee called the earlier wording outdated.

Parasite won Best Picture although none of its six Oscar nominations came in which field?

Acting was the gap: Parasite became the 12th film to win Best Picture without a single nomination for its cast.

Which Oscar-winning British actress joined the planned Parasite TV series before leaving in 2022?

Tilda Swinton was confirmed for a lead role in February 2020, with Mark Ruffalo rumoured to join her, but she said in 2022 that she was out.

Which prestige home-video label released Parasite with its black-and-white edition in October 2020?

Criterion paired a remastered version with the monochrome cut, a transfer supervised by Bong and his cinematographer.

Kwak Sin-ae made Oscar history sharing Parasite's Best Picture award with Bong in which role?

Producer Kwak Sin-ae was the first Asian woman to receive the Best Picture award in that role in the 92-year history of the Academy Awards.

Bong nicknamed Parasite after which part of its two homes, a motif that marks each family's place?

Stairways gave him the label 'stairway movie', because the staircases in the two families' homes chart who stands above whom.

Bong says the title Parasite also fits the rich Parks, who live off what belonging to others?

Their labour, he argued: the Parks cannot wash dishes or drive themselves, and his marketing team had worried the title pointed only at the poor family.

In Parasite, Ki-woo wins his job with the Parks by posing as a student of which Seoul university?

Yonsei University is on the certificate his sister forges for him, and it is also where Bong himself studied sociology.

For which film was Parasite's lead actor the first Korean named Best Actor at France's top festival?

Broker, the first Korean-language film by Hirokazu Kore-eda, cast him as a laundry owner who sells babies left in a church's baby box.

In 2020 Parasite became the first Korean film in 15 years to top the box office in which country?

Japan had also not seen a Korean film draw a million filmgoers in nearly 15 years until Parasite did it that February.

Critics link Parasite to which nickname for South Korea that spread among young Koreans around 2015?

Hell Joseon says life in modern South Korea is hellish, a satirical phrase fed by scarce jobs, exam pressure and a widening gap between rich and poor.

Which South Korean media company released Parasite in its home country in May 2019?

CJ Entertainment opened it nine days after its festival premiere, and more than ten million tickets were sold at home, about one for every five South Koreans.

In Parasite, Geun-sae's debts trace back to a failed shop selling which Taiwanese-style cake?

Castella shops were briefly fashionable in South Korea until the craze collapsed amid a glut of bakeries and claims of excess oil in the cakes, a real fad the film borrows for his backstory.

Parasite's 'Jessica Jingle', a rhyme for learning a fake identity, reworks a song about which place?

Dokdo Is Our Land, a 1982 pop song first sung by a comedian, supplied the melody, and the jingle later went viral online in its own right.

A Chinese festival scrapped its closing-night screening of Parasite in 2019, officially citing what?

Technical reasons was the whole explanation given, one day before the film was due to close the FIRST International Film Festival in Xining.

Which South Korean food company makes both instant noodles mixed into Parasite's jjapaguri dish?

Nongshim makes Chapagetti and Neoguri, and after the film it began selling the two together as a single Chapaguri product.

Beyond its original score, Parasite uses a 1964 pop song in one key scene, sung in which language?

Italian singer Gianni Morandi recorded it, and the film's success gave his 55-year-old hit a fresh burst of popularity.

Which actress portrays Mrs Park, the trusting wife who hires the Kims one by one, in Parasite?

Cho Yeo-jeong portrays her as sweet but naive, a woman so reliant on recommendations that every Kim arrives vouched for by the last.

Parasite's lead actor first worked with Bong in 2003, as a rural detective in which acclaimed film?

Memories of Murder began a long partnership: the same actor went on to lead The Host for Bong and returned for Parasite sixteen years later.

At the BAFTAs, Parasite won the prize for films not in English and an award for which craft?

Screenwriting brought the film Best Original Screenplay, but its other two nominations, for Best Film and for directing, went unrewarded.

Which American comedy director signed on beside Bong to oversee the planned Parasite TV series?

Adam McKay was announced with Bong in January 2020, weeks before the Oscars, and Bong said five years later that the series was still in development.

Parasite composer Jung Jae-il played piano at which diplomatic event in April 2018?

The inter-Korean summit that month was the first time since 1953 that a North Korean leader had entered the South's territory, and he performed for the occasion.

Parasite cinematographer Hong Kyung-pyo also shot which 2018 mystery by director Lee Chang-dong?

Burning, adapted from a Haruki Murakami short story, sits beside Parasite as one of the two films he is best known for.

Parasite's US opening weekend posted the best per-cinema average since which 2016 film?

La La Land had set the mark three years earlier; Parasite opened in just three cinemas, and its average was the best ever for an international film.