South Korean film 'Parasite' is an Oscar front-runner

Add to that, Hollywood's Directors Guild of America (DGA), Producers Guild of America (PGA), and Art Directors Guild (ADG) have all also nominated it for their top honors, giving "Parasite" commercial visibility and artistic recognition and acceptance rarely seen outside of Hollywood.

At the Writers Guild of America Awards, co-authors, Han Jin-won and Bong Joon-ho won "Best Original Screenplay" - the guild's top honor.

"This was the first project I wrote with director Bong Joon-ho," writer, Han Jin-won told Xinhua. "And it was great for me because he let me write freely."

In fact, IMDB reports that the "unstoppable tsunami" of Parasite has resulted in 163 nominations worldwide and 157 wins. That's success by any measure.

It's also worthy of note that Parasite has been chosen as one of the Top Ten films of 2019 by a parade of industry leaders and influencers, including, LA Times, NY Times, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, Hollywood Reporter, Rotten Tomatoes, New York Post, RogerEbert.com, People Magazine, Rolling Stone, USA Today, and many more.

Lee Sun-Kyun, co-star in the movie, told Xinhua, "There are so many great films from foreign countries, from Asian countries. I hope there will be opportunity for a lot more foreign language films next year."

But the biggest prize for Parasite may be yet to come: the Oscars, scheduled to be awarded by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences on Sunday.

Making more cinematic history, Parasite is the first South Korean-made film to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture at the upcoming 92nd Academy Awards. Astonishingly, it has nabbed six Oscar nominations, including the Academy's top prizes, Best Picture, Best Director and Best International Feature Film, much like Mexican film director Alfonso Cuaron did with his biopic, Roma, last year.

When asked by Xinhua if he thought an Oscar was in store for them, the film's star, Song Kang-ho, replied, "This film resonates well around the world because these days every society has problems with 'the haves' and 'the have nots' existing side-by-side with one another. But as to the Oscars, who can say?"