South Korean film 'Parasite' that created a history by becoming the first ever non-English movie to win Best Picture at the 92nd Academy Awards weeks ago, has not lost its fame even now. The Bong Joon-ho's tragicomedy thriller has been sweeping all awards and cleaning up at the box office, and people have not been able to stop talking (or searching) on Google.
The search giant, in a fresh report, has revealed that on 1 February, the day the Academy Awards took place in Los Angeles, California, there was an 857% surge on the number of searches for the term 'Parasite' and it seems to grow more. Even weeks after Oscars ended, the term has became the most-searched film worldwide - 117% more searched than “1917" and 132% more searched than "Jojo Rabbit, the company said in a blog post.
“Interest in Korean cinema has been growing steadily over the past decade—but the success of ‘Parasite' has sent people scrambling to find out more. Related searches for ‘Korea' and ‘film' have increased by more than 47 percent in the past month and reached their highest peak for 12 months in the week after the Oscars," noted Eunah Lee, Communications and Public Affairs Manager, Korea, Google, in the blog.
'Parasite' is a story about how an economically poor family schemes to become employed by a wealthy family and consequently infiltrate their household by posing as unrelated, qualified individuals.
But the movie was not the only point of interest for people. Director Bong Joon-ho gained equal popularity for not only being the mastermind behind the film but also for his quirky sense of humour. His Award acceptance speech "drink until next morning" became a viral sensation, and search increased by more than 2,000% on the day of the awards. Korean-language searches for Martin Scorcese surged, too, after Bong quoted one of his lines (“the most personal is the most creative"), the blog revealed. Additionally, his translator was also searched along with him. Google says “who is Bong Joon Ho’s translator?" was also searched a lot. The answer is Sharon Choi, a Korean-American and fellow filmmaker who gained her own following during awards season.
And that's not enough. The Korean noodle dish ram-don (aka Jjapa Guri), which was features in the movie also saw a large number of searches. Google revealed that searches for “ram-don recipe" have been grown by more than 400% globally. Moreover, searches for “Asian supermarket" are also up more than 350% -- making sense since the film featured some supermarket scenes. Denmark, the United States, Canada, Singapore and Australia were among the countries searching the most for Asian supermarket queries.
The South Korean film has won hearts everywhere and just as it gathered all the major awards at the Oscars, it has also created a wave on Google Search engine and made a bomb on global box office collection. As of 18 February 2020, Parasite has grossed $44.3 million in the United States and Canada, and $161.0 million in other territories (including $72 million from South Korea), for a worldwide total of $205.3 million.
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