20 Things You Didn't Know About Parasite
11. It Turns Out That Everything Isn’t Peachy
Early on in the story, the Parks’ housekeeper Moon-gwang falls ill after the Kim family exploits her peach allergy to ensure that Chung-sook is hired by the Park family. This later came into play after the Kim family uses the former housekeeper’s allergy against her to stop her from exposing their scam.
A peach allergy is not the first thing that comes to mind when attempting to subdue a foe, but such is the eccentric genius of Bong Joon Ho. The director revealed that he got the idea of using the dangerous bodily reaction as a plot device from his college schoolmate, who had a similarly horrifying reaction to the fruit.
Initially, the young Bong and his friends assumed that their colleague was joking but learnt the horrifying truth after they threw a handful of peaches at him. The director, however, insists that he did not weaponize fruit against his friend.