Park Chan Wook

Born on August 23, 1963 in Seoul, Park Chan-wook studied Philosophy at Sogang University. On campus he organized a film club that was a huge success among his classmates. At that time he aspired to become an art critic, until he saw Alfred Hitchcock ‘s Vertigo , which impressed him so much that he knew what he really wanted was to be a filmmaker.

When he finished his studies, he began to write articles about cinema in various magazines, until he was accepted as an assistant director in various productions in his country.

Finally, Park Chan-wook made his film debut with Moon Is the Sun’s Dream , from 1992, also written by him, about a gangster who runs away with his boss’s girlfriend. It was unsuccessful, as were Saminjo —with a saxophonist, a violent simpleton, and a single mother forming a criminal gang—and Anakiseuteu Anarchists —based on a group of 1920s Korean anarchists.

With so much accumulated failure, it seemed that the director was not going to take off. Finally, Park Chan-wook ‘s career took a turn in 2000, when he directed JSA (Joint Security Area) , in which two North Korean soldiers are found dead in the security area on the border between the two Koreas, increasing tension. between both countries. It became the highest grossing film in the history of his country.

The success of the film gave Park Chan-wook the chance to shoot his next project outside of the big Korean production companies, with complete independence. This is Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance , about a deaf-mute young man who kidnaps an important businessman with his girlfriend. He initiates the so-called “Revenge Trilogy”.

It is followed by Oldboy , his greatest international success, with a twisted but fascinating plot about a guy who is looking for the people who have kidnapped him for fifteen years. It won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes, although Quentin Tarantino , a passionate fan of Park Chan-wook , who served as President of the Jury, lobbied until the last minute for the Palme d’Or, which ultimately went down – with great dose of politically motivated – to Fahrenheit 9/11 , Michael Moore ‘s anti-Bush crusade .

Spike Lee has shot the remake in English, with Samuel L. Jackson , Josh Brolin , and Elizabeth Olsen . “I’m very flattered that an American version of the film was made, because now the story will reach more people,” said Park Chan-wook . There is also an Indian apocryphal version titled Zindia . “At the Berlin festival, an Indian student approached me to give me a copy on DVD. I asked him how many musical numbers they had put on and he told me none. So I was so disappointed that I lost all desire to see it,” he explained. the filmmaker.

Park Chan-wook’s revenge triptych closes with the equally visually brilliant Sympathy for Lady Vengeance , about a woman released from prison after serving a wrongful sentence, so she goes after the real culprit. “I have been accused a lot of repeating the same theme in three films, but I think they are very different from each other. Simpathy for Mr. Vengeance had as its underlying theme the trauma of the separation between the two Koreas. Oldboy wanted to imitate classical mythology , with the figure of a quintessential hero. And Sympathy for Lady Vengeance is a critique of everything I don’t like about South Korean society.”

With the poetic and romantic I am a cyborg , about a young woman admitted to a psychiatric hospital because she believes she is a cybernetic being, Park Chan-wook won the Alfred Bauer award at the Berlin Festival, named after the founder of the contest, and which distinguishes film innovation. Instead, he disappointed with his foray into the vampire genre, Thirst , about a priest who volunteers to be inoculated by scientists with a virus they’re developing.

He refused to direct the remake of Possession infernal in Hollywood . “I like the original movie too much and I said no. But I don’t know how the information was made public, because only Sam Raimi and I knew about it, and we only talked about it through private emails. Someone tell Raimi that I was not me”. But later, Park Chan-wook has made his debut in the movie mecca with Stoker , full of ‘Hitchcockian’ winks, with great international stars in the cast: Nicole Kidman , Mia Wasikowska , Matthew Goode and Dermot Mulroney. Follow the journey of a disconsolate young woman because the day she turns 18, her father accidentally charred to death. “I finally agreed to go to Hollywood because they offered me a good script, and I would have moved to New Zealand if necessary,” says the director.