South Korean film Parasite made history at the Oscars by becoming the first international film to win an award for Best Picture. Directed by Bong Joon-Ho, it took home four other Academy Awards. These included Best Original Screenplay, Best International Feature Film, and Best Director.
Many netizens on Twitter started comparing Parasite to a 1999 Tamil film Minsara Kanna. They tried to reach a conclusion as to whether Parasite movie copied from Minsara Kanna. Parasite, a dark comedy, tackles the realities of class hierarchies in South Korea. A poor family tricks a rich family into employing them. All the while, they pretend to have unrelated to each other. While the premise of Minsara Kanna is similar, the two films follow different plots. Minsara Kanna follows a man’s desire for a woman and how his entire family takes up employment at her house to seek her family’s approval, disregarding their own social status. They maintain secrecy around their identities and work in the house as strangers to each other.
The issue was an online discussion at first but turned serious when producer PL Thenappan, who now holds the rights to this Tamil film, decided to file a case. He expressed his wish to seeking compensation from the makers of Parasite. He told TNM: “On Monday or Tuesday, I will be filing a case with help from an international lawyer. They have taken the plot from my film. When they find out that some of our films got inspired by their films, they file cases. Similarly, it is only fair for us to do the same.” Director of Minsara Kanna, KS Ravikumar said: “I'm happy that the story has received an Oscar, even if it (Minsara Kanna) served as an inspiration. However, filing a case is up to the producer.”
