One thing is that the Korean setting is very important for the class warfare story A big theme of the movie is that even the Parks still have something to aspire to, this envy the South Korean elite have for the billionaire class of the United States
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The way the younger Kims are able to parachute into the Parks' lives by reimagining themselves as Kevin and Jessica from Chicago The way they immediately open their wallet for someone who can teach their daughter English
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The whole absurdly developed parasitic economy of English speakers, both foreign and domestic, with no other skills, sucking on the teat of rich families desperate for bilingual cachet Ki-woo's con job just making him a parasite on an existing parasite
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The way the younger Kims leapfrog the Parks to become the glamorous sophisticates by just reinventing themselves as "Kevin" and "Jessica" The demeaning sheer thirst the elites of this society have for proximity to whiteness and American culture
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(The whole joke is that they're a fake English tutor and a fake art therapist but it's not like the real people they would've hired for those jobs would've been all that much less fake)
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I really liked the comparison that someone once made where after the collapse of the British Empire the main thing the Empire left behind was their language, the footprint of the "Anglosphere" in media
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And much as in the days of the actual Empire the Empire served to provide bureaucratic postings abroad for Mother England to send its useless aristocratic failsons, the modern linguistic Anglosphere is a jobs program for people whose only skill is the fact that they speak English
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It's not like it's a great life being an English teacher abroad Still, the fact that you can fly to another country and get a job based on the fact that your native language is inherently valuable can't be called anything other than incredible privilege
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(Speaking as an Asian-American, I had such a clear picture of who Kevin and Jessica would be if they were real people and the level of automatic respect and benefit of the doubt the Parks give them was hilarious to me)
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So the series was announced before I saw the movie and I automatically recoiled, but after seeing the movie I'm kind of into it. Because the themes are universal, but the nuances of the story are so culturally specific. I feel like there could be 10 remakes worldwide.
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That's not to say that I'm blind to the problematic aspects, or that people who disagree are wrong, but I think it's a good reason for adaptation. I'm also assuming they will DRAG IT OUT like most prestige series these days.
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