Bong Joon-ho: "My Goal Is to Combine Korean Reality with the Fun of Genre Films"

At Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, USA, Engages with Audience
"Winning an Academy Award is Great, but Still Hard to Understand"
"I am a First-Generation Korean Film Enthusiast... American Genre Films Are Like Blood in My Veins"

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Jonggil Lee] Director Bong Joon-ho, who won four Academy Awards for the film Parasite, could not hide his bewildered feelings.

On the 13th (local time), according to the Minnesota regional newspaper Star Tribune and others, Director Bong had a conversation with local fans the previous night at the Walker Art Center, an art museum in Minneapolis, focusing on the Academy Awards and more. It was a special exhibition titled "Crossing Boundaries," reviewing Bong’s works including Parasite, Mother, Okja, and Snowpiercer.

At the sold-out "Q&A with the Audience" session, Director Bong reflected on winning the Academy Awards, asking, "Was the Oscar ceremony four days ago? Three days ago?" and said, "It already feels like it was three years ago." He expressed, "Winning the Academy Award is definitely a great achievement, but I still cannot understand it," with a puzzled expression. He added, "After Parasite was announced as the winner of Best International Feature Film, I did not expect to win in other categories," and said, "When the Best Director award was announced, I went on stage without a prepared acceptance speech."

At that time, Director Bong said, "If the Academy allows, I would like to cut this award into five pieces with a Texas chainsaw and share it," which made the audience burst into laughter. This was a remark referencing director Tobe Hooper’s cult Hollywood B-movie The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974). He expressed his affection for American genre films, saying, "It’s like the blood flowing through my veins." He went on to explain, "I encountered films by Alfred Hitchcock, Brian De Palma, and Sam Peckinpah through AFKN, the US military broadcast in Korea, and my university club, and my goal became to combine the reality of Korea with the fun of genre films."

Director Bong also succinctly introduced the characteristics of Korean cinema. He said, "Korean directors share a loose aesthetic standard, but it is different from collective and conscious movements by filmmakers such as Dogme 95 and the Nouvelle Vague." He referred to himself and other actively working directors like Park Chan-wook, Kim Jee-woon, and Lee Chang-dong as "the first generation of Korean cinephiles."

Dogme 95 is a film collective created by Danish directors led by Lars von Trier. It rejected commonplace special effects on film sets and pioneered the use of digital cameras for realism and aesthetic effect. The Nouvelle Vague was a French film movement that began in the late 1950s. It broke the fixed rules of genres and cinematic conventions, pursuing films as personal works of the director.