Enlarge / Three-time Oscar winner Bong Joon-ho makes his statuettes kiss. Legend. (credit: David Swanson / Shutterstock)
Late last year, Ars picked Parasite by South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho as the best movie of 2019. Last weekend, so did the Oscars. The only conclusion that can be drawn from this is that 100 percent of Academy voters must read Ars.
After recovering from our self-congratulatory champagne showers, however, we were stunned to see Bong's earlier films poorly represented in our archives. I've come to rectify that, since the South Korean writer-director fits into the Ars mold of creepy, stylish, and cutting-edge filmmaking.
My experience with Korean filmmaking in general...
Because I'm basic AF, my first exposure to Korean cinema was when the jury at Cannes (headed by Quentin Tarantino) awarded Oldboy the 2004 Grand Prix. From there, I watched the rest of Park Chan-wook's Vengeance Trilogy and The Handmaiden as well as making my way through flicks like The Chaser, A Tale of Two Sisters, A Hard Day, Attack the Gas Station!, and Train to Busan. If you've heard one thing about Korean films in general, it's that they are violent. I am by no means an expert on every movie put out below the 38th parallel, but I am reasonably erudite about the Korean films that US distributors have seen fit to bring stateside in the last couple decades as part of what's called "New Korean Cinema." This reputation for violence is partly warranted and partly marketing.
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