기생충 / Parasite (2019 Bong Joon Ho & co-scr)

A film of firsts: well, it was the first film from South Korea we've seen*, it was the first foreign film to win the Best Picture Oscar, the first South Korean film to win the Palme D'Or.

A poor sub-basement family wants more, and use wily trickery to get it from a wealthy family - where they find another basement family, and the tables turn. Quite unexpected and black and funny, we were discussing it still hours later. It's a pointed social comedy, emphasised by the smell of the poorer lot, and which must have annoyed North Korea because of its success, Oscar recognition and it's North Korean TV presenter piss-take performed by the mother.

Good cast: the family are Park So-Dam ('I Googled 'art therapy''), Choi Woo-shik, Song Kang-ho (he and the director have often collaborated) and Jany Hye-jin as the practical mother; the affluent family are naive mother Cho Yeo-jeong, Jeong Ji-so (daughter) and Park Myung-hoon; the housekeeper is Lee Jeong-eun and her husband Lee Sun Gyun.

It won the Oscar for Best Film, Foreign Film, Screenplay (with Jon Won Han) and Director, BAFTA for Best Foreign Film and original screenplay. Cinematography from Kyung-pyo Hong, music Jaeil Jung.

It's a great screenplay, funny and clever, Bong's (or Ho's - I don't know my way round these Korean names yet) direction is crisp. Tarantino's long been a fan - he rates the 2003 Memories of Murder as one of the best.

The scene where the basement husband says he's not sure if he can remember not being there is oddly affecting.

*Ed. No it wasn't - that was Oldboy.