Parasite’s Historic Win: Oscars Plays Fair With International Filmmakers or Just A Trick Of The Trade To Draw Attention?

Oscars 2020 truly took the whole world by storm when for the first time, the history of the Academic Awards witnessed a non-Hollywood film winning the Best Picture award. It’s safe to say the South Korean film Parasite absolutely dominated this year’s event and the film crew deserves the appreciation from the world for this historic win.

It came as an utter surprise as World War I epic 1917 was predicted to become the frontrunner by many. However, an entire shock was showered on a non-English language thriller by the critics and the industry. The Parasite team and director Bong Joon Ho himself added several prestigious feathers to their cap as simultaneously won four biggest awards at Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Foreign Language Film and Best Original Screenplay.

Many said that this change is considered a big transformation as Oscars started playing fair with other filmmakers who don’t come from Hollywood. However, words on the street also have it that it’s also one of the tricks of the trade of Oscars to cook up a storm among the public annually. Obviously, awarding a South Korean film truly drew the attention of people from all quarters.

However, the 2019-released film Parasite showed advanced improvement in the filmmaking technique of Bong Joon Ho. For those who are unversed, Ho is one of four legendary directors in South Korea and the others include Park Chan Wook who gained fame for the film Old Boy, Kim Ki Duk, and Lee Chang-Dong.

In fact, Bong wanted to reach international audiences with films like Snowpiercer and Okja which were shot abroad with foreign cast ensemble. However, they didn’t succeed as the expectation of the director. Parasite which stars all domestic actors but used world-class filmmaking techniques helped him bring home trophies at Oscars 2020.