In 2019, the Korean film "Parasite" became the first non-English film in Oscar history to win the Best Picture Award and won 4 Oscars. Director Bong Joon-ho uses his previous simple but sharp style to directly point to the core problem currently facing South Korea and the entire world: class solidification.

Ji Woo's family lives in a dilapidated basement. Ji Woo hopes to change his destiny by passing the exam, but after four exams, he still failed. In addition, his sister, mother, and father also can't find jobs. One day, Ji Woo’s classmates came to visit and introduced him to work as a tutor in a rich family. As a result, he successfully came to work in a rich man's home, and tried every means to get his family in. Soon, Ji Woo’s sister and parents also live in, and they enter the rich man’s home like a parasite to work. In such days, they even dreamed of getting married with this rich family and becoming a real rich man. However, this illusory dream eventually shattered over time.

The stone is the first symbol to appear in the whole movie. In the beginning, this stone was given by Ji Woo’s senior to his family, saying that it symbolized luck and hoped to bring happiness to Ji Woo’s family. Since then, the Ji Woo’s family has successfully entered the rich family to work through a series of incidents, which has indeed changed the destiny of this family. But Ji Woo's family has also been killed by working in a rich man's house. In fact, this "lucky stone" is not a real stone. On the night of the heavy rain, the stone floated on the water, which shows that it is a hollow stone. This object reveals the core of the whole film: "fake". The dream of a poor family who thought they could become a rich man was broken overnight. The life they imagined only existed and illusion. The poor finally returned to poverty after experiencing the luxury house life.

In addition, there are two contrasting scenes in the film: up and down ladders. In the first half, Ji Woo walked out of home and went to a rich man's home. At this time, the director used a long lens to show that Ji Woo was gradually climbing uphill. Working in the homes of the rich is the first step for the poor who think they can achieve the class transition, and the upward ladder from this represents the "class leap." The opposite is the downward ladder, which symbolizes "sink and poverty." On the night of heavy rain, Ji Woo's family rushed back to the original basement. The camera along the way was a scene of a family running down the stairs. That heavy rain broke all the dreams of "class transition", and their sinking all the way finally ushered in the initial poverty. This double ladder of upwards and downwards implies the current social situation: the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, and the solidification of class is deepened.

The main theme of "Parasite" is to criticize the class solidification in Korean society. This is not only in Korea, but in the whole world. In the film, the only way for Ji Woo, a child of a poor family, to change his family's destiny is to enter a university. However, in a society where educational resources are monopolized by the upper class, the poor will never get the opportunity of higher education. Although the contradiction of the film focuses on the poor and the rich, the director does not set a clear opposition between good and evil. The rich family is not evil; the poor family is not honest and hardworking. But as long as there are classes, it will inevitably be accompanied by oppression, discrimination and violence. What the director wants to express is a comprehensive contradiction of class society. However, the existence of this contradiction is objective and unavoidable. All upper-class societies will inevitably provide a steady stream of "parasitic" opportunities for the lower classes, because they need lower-class labor, so society cannot stop the violence generated by productivity and economic exploitation, and class solidification also arises from this.

In 1995, American sociologist and anthropologist Lewis first proposed the concept of "poverty culture": "The poor usually have little knowledge of the outside world. They believe that luck determines their life. The control of aggressive behavior is low.” The poor family in the movie also reflects this concept. They live in a dilapidated basement with no internet signal and little knowledge of the outside world. In addition, their family regards that "lucky stone" as a treasure, believing that it is the only way for them to change their destiny. Therefore, in this closed space, the poor cannot adapt to the ever-changing social environment, and poverty will be passed on from generation to generation. Poverty, as a reality, will also cause new poverty. The class stratification becomes more obvious.

Class solidification is an unavoidable problem in the development of capitalism. The significance of this film is not to discuss solutions to this problem. I personally think that the real value of the movie "Parasite" is vigilance and reflection. In this age of amusing ourselves to death, few people pay attention to the problems of the bottom of society. "Parasite" uses the simplest lens language to expose the most profound social problems and make it reflect on our lives. Watching movies is just a habit of life, but the life in the movie reminds us of the life we are used to.