This year’s Cannes Palme d’Or winning Korean film, Parasite has broken all box office records in South Korea. The Bong Joon-ho directorial is a family drama from the dark comedy genre starring Song Kang-ho, Lee Sun-kyun, Cho Yeo-jeong, Choi Woo-shik and Park So-dam.
Parasite is the first Korean film to win the prestigious Cannes award. According to Korean sources, the film is estimated to surpass 10 million admissions, the mark of a mega-blockbuster in Korea. That would make Parasite the second film by Bong to do so after his 2006 hit The Host.
According to the film distributor CJ Entertainment, the film grossed a total of $25 million dollars over its opening weekend, making it the biggest opening weekend for a Palme d’Or winner in any country in the last 25 years, reported screendaily.com
After having run for over two weekends, the film still earned $51.0 million from 7.02 million admissions reported variety.com.
Parasite marks Bong’s return to Korean-language filmmaking after the Netflix acclaimed film, Okja, that was also nominated for the Palme d’Or in the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, and Snowpiercer and stars Song Kang Ho in his fourth collaboration with the director.
Parasite revolves around the story of an unemployed Ki-taek whose family begins to take a peculiar interest in the wealthy Parks (family) for their lifestyle and livelihood until all of them get entangled in an unexpected incident.