'Parasite'

When a movie arrives with as much hype as Bong Joon-Ho’s “Parasite” — after winning the Palme D’Or at Cannes, stirred up Academy Awards talk, and had impressive opening box office numbers — there’s always the worry that the movie can’t live up to it.

No such worry here. “Parasite” is entertaining and shocking, a thought-provoking examination of class differences that shifts effortlessly from comedy to social commentary to something approaching horror.

The Kim family lives in a semi-basement apartment that always smells vaguely of something unpleasant. They are on the low end of the economic spectrum, partly through bad luck and partly through their own lackluster ambitions. The four of them — Ki-taek (Kang-ho Song), the patriarch; his wife, Chung-Song (Hye-Jin Chang); and adult children Ki-woo (Woo-sik Choi) and Ki-jung (So-dam Park) — are usually unemployed, and when they do find jobs they do them as lazily as possible.

One night, Ki-woo’s university friend, Min (Seo-joon Park), mentions that he’s leaving Korea to study abroad, and he won’t be able to tutor Park Da-Hye (Jung Ziso), the teen daughter of a rich couple, Dong-ik (Sun-kyun Lee) and Yeon-kyo (Yeo-jeong Jo). Min suggests Ki-woo take the job while he’s gone. After an interview, augmented by university records faked expertly by his sister, Ki-Jung, Ki-woo has an interview — and a foot in the door of the Parks that could benefit all of the Kims.

First, he helps Ki-jung finagle a job as an “art therapist,” to help Da-Hye’s rambunctious little brother, Da-song (Jung Hyun-jun). Then Ki-jung helps get the Parks’ driver fired, and Dad takes that job. The toughest nut to crack is figuring out how to get rid of the housekeeper, Moon-gwang (Jeong-eun Lee), who has been in the house longer than the Parks have, and talks glowingly of the architect who created such a gorgeous home.

At one point, everything seems to be going the Kims’ way, and they’re finally getting everything they think they deserve. Then, something happens that sends the Kims reeling, putting their hard work — or their hard avoidance of work — into jeopardy.

Bong (“Snowpiercer,” “The Host”), who directed and wrote the screenplay with Han Jin Won (an assistant director on Bong’s “Okja”), sets up his story as a gradually intensifying comedy of manners between the blithely wealthy Parks and the conniving lower-class Kims. The differences are literally from the gutter to the stars, with a whole lot of resentment and condescension in between. The humor in the early part of the film slowly makes way for a nail-biting thriller, and Bong balances both moods in a delicious tension.

The particulars — Jo’s comic performance as the clueless Mrs. Park, cinematographer Hong Kyung-pyo’s precise images of the ultra-modern Park house and the shabby Kim apartment, Bong’s sly commentary on the haves and have nots — are calibrated perfectly, all building to a conclusion that will make audiences choke on the laughter that so easily escaped them in the early going. “Parasite” is the sort of movie that shows much in the moment, and reveals more as it rattles around in the viewer’s brain.

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‘Parasite’

★★★★

Opened October 11 in select cities; opens Friday, Nov. 1, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City) and Megaplex Jordan Commons (Sandy). Rated R for language, some violence and sexual content. Running time: 132 minutes; in Korean, with subtitles.