Bong Joon-ho finally became a phenomenon.
|Author: Aye
Korean movies achieve zero breakthrough!
On May 25, local time in France, the 72nd Cannes International Film Festival came to an end. " Parasite " directed by South Korean director Bong Joon-ho was approved unanimously by the judges and won the Palme d'Or. This is the first time that a Korean film has won the highest honor of in the Cannes Film Festival.
As a top Korean director, Bong Joon-ho has been shortlisted for the Cannes Film Festival three times: in 2008 and 2009, he filmed "Tokyo! 》《Mother" was shortlisted for a focus unit of the 61st and 62nd Cannes Film Festivals; in 2017, he "killed" into the main competition unit of the 70th Cannes Film Festival with "Ya Zi". Unfortunately, he missed the trophy these three times.
This is Bong Joon-ho's fourth time being shortlisted for the Cannes Film Festival, and he finally got what he wanted.
Bong Joon-ho said: "Parasite is a continuation of my film creation and a genre film that I am good at. Today I got the Palme d'Or, and I was surprised. This year is the anniversary of the 100th anniversary of Korean movies, and the Cannes Film Festival also gave me the best gift."
Korean Spielberg
Bong Joon-ho is not a productive director. He has only made a feature film in about 3 years, and the script alone will be worn out for a year. He once complained, "I hate writing scripts so much, but there is no way."
As the saying goes, slow work is done. Over the years, Bong Joon-ho has only made 7 feature films, but because of his excellent performance, he has become a master director of a genre film.
From left to right are: "Kidnap Dog", "Murder of Murder", "Hanjiang Monster", "Mother", "Snow Country Train", "Yu Zi", "Parasite"
Bong Joon-ho's true debut work "Kidnap Dog Dog", was released in 2000.
The film creates a series of hilarious and funny scenes around a dog, a part-time university lecturer who has no way to be promoted, a lecturer's nagging wife, and a female secretary who volunteers to find a dog. In fact, it wants to reflect that in this fiercely competitive modern society, everyone has their own miserable situation and bitterness. Although the film is not low in style, it is very popular.
Later recalled that Bong Joon-ho felt that he had a little theme first, "It is problematic to use the matter of killing dogs to express too much thought." After learning from his debut, Bong Joon-ho handed over his second work, "Memories of Murder" in 2003.
"Murder Memories" is adapted from real stories and tells a serial murder incident full of suspense. In the real incident, the murderer is still at large and Bong Joon-ho has continued to use this fact in the movie. Therefore, behind the scenes with no lack of warm and humor, the core of the wrapping is still helpless and depressing. Especially at the end of the film, a seemingly hopeful but actually hopeless ending is left, which directly pushes the film to its climax.
At the end of "Murder Memories", Agent Park finally faced the audience's gaze, which was shocking - is the murderer who was watching the movie?
"Murder Memories" won the Korean Blue Dragon Award, the Tokyo Film Festival Best Asian Film Award, the Korean Big Bell Award, and the St. Bascestian International Film Festival New Director Award. It is recognized as one of the best movies in Korean film history and has also established Bong Joon-ho's position as a big shot in the Korean film industry in one fell swoop.
Bong Joon-ho did not feel complacent and stopped moving forward because of this, but instead continued to break through himself. "Hanjiang Monster" in 2006 not only set a new Korean box office record, but also allowed Bong Joon-ho to gain a large number of fans around the world. Quentin Tarantino even compared him with Spielberg. The concept of this film
actually comes from Bong Joon-ho's perception of some events that happened in South Korea in the 1990s, such as the collapse of the Sanfeng Department Store in the center of Seoul in 1995. "Just like the scene of the disaster film , "Hanjiang Monster" is also a disaster film. Monsters appeared in broad daylight, strange! But the luxurious building suddenly collapsed, which is even more bizarre."
Bong Joon-ho uses black humor to show the powerlessness of ordinary people when facing reality, allowing this film to present a completely different character trait from similar movies in the form of a seemingly ordinary monster thriller. After
, Bong Joon-ho has successively shown his own different styles: in 2009, he presented the warm art film "Mother"; in 2013, he collaborated with Hollywood for the first time, and tried to make the exciting science fiction action film "Snow Country Train"; in 2017, he had another imaginative science fiction adventure The film "Yu Zi" makes people say it looks a bit like the live-action version of Totoro...
The award-winning "Parasite" is a black suspense film with a compact rhythm and rich elements. Bong Joon-ho brings the charm of this type of film to the extreme. In this film, Bong Joon-ho is aimed at a society with increasingly serious two-level differentiation, where rich people are getting richer, while poor people are left to struggle to survive.
The famous American film website Indiewire commented: "Parasite" finally made Bong Joon-ho his own film genre. He abandoned the science fiction element and redefined his work with a more down-to-earth but weird life story under the influence of late capitalism. "
If the box office is not good, go home and open an audio-visual store
In many film reviews and film research, Bong Joon-ho is often called a "film sociologist" because people have analyzed it and found that his works are full of complex and subtle social metaphors.
For example, in "Memories of Murder", the murderer was not found in the end. Some people think that Bong Joon-ho is pointing his finger at it. In the 1980s, South Korea's backward and stereotyped investigation system, the real killer was an outrageous and loophole-filled system, and the depressing social atmosphere in South Korea at that time;
For example, in 2000, a researcher in the US military stationed in Seoul, South Korea insisted on ordering the formaldehyde to pour into the drainage system despite South Korea's dissuasion, and eventually flowed into the Han River. The monsters in "Han River Monster" were not natural disasters but man-made disasters, so many people believe that Bongjoon Hao is firing at the United States, and the "monster" symbolizes the United States;
and "Snow Country Train", the hero finally came to the first-class carriage he had dreamed of for 17 years after working hard, but suddenly realized that what he saw was not what he wanted. It turned out that the hero seeking his own liberation may not necessarily have a perfect ending...
The audience's interpretation of these works has a lot to do with Bong Joon-ho's professional background - 1993, 2 At the age of 4, he graduated from the sociology major of Yonsei University, , the top university in Korea.
, but Bong Joon-ho said that he actually "don't understand sociology very much." "I didn't like the professors' classes in college, and I spent all my energy on film clubs and watching movies," he always said with a smile. "I know that many movie fans and scholars like to over-interpret my movies. For me, I will not deliberately add any profound artistic quality to the movies. "
In fact, compared with the influence of professional learning, Bong Joon-ho may be more influenced by the times and family.
Bong Joon-ho's father, the famous Korean painter Bong Sang-kun, is a person who hates the military government, but the supervisor of his work unit happens to be a retired soldier. When Bong Joon-ho was in middle school, he often heard him complain about the absurdity of his work unit at the dinner table at home.
Waited to go to college, and just in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Korean social movements were in turmoil. Many progressive members were teaching in the Department of Sociology at Yeonsei University, where he was, and students also took to the streets Head. This is a memory of that era. It is difficult to avoid Bong Joon-ho's future works.
However, his dream of film did not start well.
In the early days, in order to raise money to make a movie, Bong Joon-ho drew comics and sold donuts. After buying the camera, he was so excited that he even hugged it and even slept with it. When filming the first short film in 1993, due to financial difficulties, he could only withdraw one from his father's gift certificate to pay the actors.
Later, Bong Joon-ho began to prepare his feature film debut "Kidnapping the Dog at the Door", and he also made the worst plan in his heart: if no audience members watched this movie, he would go home to open an audio-visual store.
At that time, he never expected that one day he would become the most box office director in South Korea, and even became the meme in the popular Korean drama " from the Stars" - In the play, in order to prove that his daughter is a first-line star, Qian Songyi's mother boasted: "Director Bong Joon-ho wants to invite her to act in a movie."
control frenzy can't be the Hollywood director
Although he became the box office king in South Korea early, Bong Joon-ho has always maintained a rare soberness, strictly demanding himself as always, and demanding his work partners in this way. It is precisely because of this that persistence and even trickyness have become the deepest impression of Bong Joon-ho.
"Memories of Murder" Liu Sung-hee once gave Bong Joon-ho the nickname "Bong Turtle Hair". Bong Joon-ho was very confused about this: "I don't know why this name makes me feel a perverted feeling. In fact, I am not that tricky. Many times I just want to feel the emotions and air in the plot of the movie through every part of the camera, but others think that I will pick my nose and look at a prop."
Bong Joon-ho was filming.
Bong Joon-ho's soberness is also reflected in his attitude towards Hollywood.
Since "Hanjiang Monster" was released in the United States, Bong Joon-ho not only gained the well-known fan of Quentin, but also received a lot of scripts sent by his agent in Hollywood. But he has not taken any further action: "Although there are interesting scripts, I don't think it's from my heart."
Bong Joon-ho's cooperation with Hollywood began with "Snow Country Train". It is actually very difficult for him to take this step -
"My Korean producer can give me 100% of the creative control, but I heard that it is difficult in Hollywood (because the studio is very powerful. I am a control freak. If I can't control the entire movie - from scripts, actor selection, filming to editing, I will go crazy." After
, Bong Joon-ho did go crazy a few times. For example, when "Snow Country Train" was released in North America, the American publisher Weinstein felt that the film was too long and hoped that he could delete it for 20 minutes. However, Bong Joon-ho immediately expressed his strong opposition, and later he pretended not to understand the other party's English many times and refused to respond. Faced with such a "hard" control freak, the distribution company had no choice but to compromise in the end.
Bong Joon-ho later said: "I really hope to protect my imagination and various details of the movie, so I don't think I can become a qualified Hollywood director."
As for the promotion of "Snow Country Train", it was called "Hollywood movie" on the official Weibo, Bong Joon-ho also disagrees and even bluntly said that this is "nonsense": "Snow Country Train" is not a Hollywood movie, but a Korean movie: Korean producer, Korean investment, but it cooperates with Hollywood actors."
Bong Joon-ho is very cautious about "entering into Hollywood". Even in a genre film with Hollywood, he does not present it to the audience in a typical Hollywood way.
Perhaps as the media commented that - Bong Joon-ho's eyes never look at Hollywood, but look down at his own pace.
As he moves forward, he always looks back at his works, and every time he looks back, he always feels regretful. When his debut work "Kidnapping Dog at the Door" premiered, he felt dissatisfied and walked out of the theater for a long time to calm down. In "Mother", which impressed the audience, nearly half of the shots wanted to "destroy the remake"; even "Memories of Murder", which was called "perfect movie" by movie fans, he was not satisfied, "The script does not need to be moved, but the lighting, movements, and expressions of some shots can be adjusted."
For Bong Joon-ho, his best work will always be the next one. It is precisely because of this that he can never lose himself in praise and always maintain creativity.
just made this point, and Bong Joon-ho won the Palme d'Or, which is well deserved.
