Bong Joon-Ho Turns 51: A Retrospective on the “Parasite” Director’s Filmography
Written by William Yeh
There may perhaps be no filmmaker as exciting today as Bong Joon-Ho, who celebrates his 51st birthday this past September.
It was just a little more than a year and a half ago when the whirlwind of media buzz and universal acclaim around “Parasite” began – a tour de force that would soon take the world by storm. By February of 2020, the film had garnered over 170 awards, earned more than $260 million USD worldwide and became the first foreign language film to win an Academy Award’s Best Picture.
There’s no better way to describe the director than sui generis: any attempt at placing the sensibilities of Bong into a taxonomy is as futile as it is to try to see his nuances in black and white. Perhaps it’s Bong’s mastery of genre blending; or his sometimes-comic, sometimes-horrific, always unpredictable depiction of violence; or his cut-throat, symbolism-loaded social commentary. If anything, Bong may have transcended genre in its entirety, rising shoulder by shoulder with the Felliniesque/Bergmanesque/Kubrickian/Lynchian.
As the end of October approaches, so does Criterion Collection’s 4k remaster of “Parasite”, a release that includes both the film and its black-and-white version that briefly played in Taiwanese theaters during Oscars season. This acquirement by Criterion isn’t shocking – already have they acquired rights of physical media distributions of key recent international cinema, whether if it’s foreign films like Celine Sciamma’s breathtaking drama Portrait of a Lady on Fire or Alfonso Cuarón’s 2018 black-and-white Mexican drama Roma.
Yet, few foreign films in history have managed to garner the sheer degree of adulation and attention “Parasite” has in the United States. In Box Office speak, the Korean masterpiece stands only behind Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon ($128.1 million), Roberto Benigni’s Life is Beautiful ($57.6m), and Zhang Yimou’s Hero ($53.7m).
Coming from an international film industry filled with cinematic auteurs and masters like Lee Chang-Dong or Park Chan-Wook, Bong has perhaps been, arguably, the most successful in simultaneously retaining the staples of Korean cinema while still jumping to international markets and industries. From 2013’s sci-fi thriller Snowpiercer to the Palme D’or Nominated Okja, Bong’s success with international talents both on and off screen is as telling as his ability to remain authentic and true to his vision and voice. Even feuds with then-producer, now-infamous Harvey Weinstein couldn’t have stopped Bong from a director’s cut.
To understand Parasite means to understand its origins – or more specifically, that of Bong Joon Ho’s.
Born in Daegu, Korea, Bong is only one in a lineage of artists. His father Bong Sang-gyun was a first generation graphic designer, industrial engineer and professor of Art; his maternal grandfather Park Taewoon was an esteemed author of literature like A Day in the Life of Kubo the Novelist; even Bong’s own son Bong Hyo-min is a film director.
While Bong has been on record clarifying of his grandfather’s absence in his life (due to a defection to North Korea in 1950), Bong’s father’s influence as a graphic designer is undeniable. From the age of fourteen, Bong’s aspirations as a filmmaker have emerged from his father’s sketches – a trait still evident in Bong’s self made storyboards, most notably for “Parasite”, whose storyboards are in purchasable collections today.
In 1988, Bong enrolled in Yonsei University, where he majored in sociology. Bong himself was an active participant of South Korean democracy movements and student demonstrations. By the early 1990s, he completed a two-year program in the Korean Academy of Film Arts, where his graduation films Incoherence and Memories of My Frame (the latter being available on YouTube) went on to screen at the Hong Kong International Film Festival and Vancouver International Film Festival.
This all served as the bedrock towards Bong’s directorial debut, Barking Dogs Never Bite (2000). It’s a film that is cruel yet sentimental, dark yet lighthearted, unpredictable yet grounded; in other words, a precursor of the masterpieces that is to come.
The story follows an idle, out-of-work college lecturer (Lee Sung-jae) whose irritation of the barking dogs of his apartment prompts him to abduct them; also living in the same apartment complex is a young girl (Bae Doona), who decides to investigates the mystery of the missing dogs.
While the debut may easily be the weakest out of Bong’s impressive oeuvre – perhaps even comparable in filmography to Lee Chang-Dong 1997 debut Green Fish – Bong’s distinct instincts for narratives and characters still shine on through here. His daring humor, his touches of absolute horror (albeit more reserved here), and his social commentary all adds towards a piece that’s fresh, funny and amusing.
After “Barking Dogs Never Bite”, Bong soon follows up in 2003 with the now classic “Memories of Murder” – a stunningly visceral crime drama centering around a real-life serial killer who was never caught (although an already incarcerated suspect has just, last year, confessed to the crimes). The significance of “Memories of Murder” cannot be easily undermined – having sets the stage for a multitude of the millenium’s criminal procedural films, including David Fincher’s 2007 “Zodiac” – and may perhaps have created a template as influencial as Fritz Lang’s 1931 “M”.
Song Kang-ho (who would go on to become a frequent collaborator of Bong’s and be, in Bong’s words, compared as Korea’s Robert De Niro) plays Detective Park, who’s partnered with Detective Seo (Kim Sang-kyung). The two are trying to solve the Hwaseong serial murders of the 1980s, which is perhaps the most notorious serial killings in the history of South Korea.
Unlike the strictly professional and no-nonsense detectives found in Westernized plots revolving around killers and criminals, Bong’s subversion of the commonly expected creates an eccentric one-two punch in every scene. These detectives and the officers at the centerpiece of the story are often cynical, overly brutal, aggressive and wrong in judgement to the point; yet such borderline absurdities are not seen as comic relief or satire but rather a depressing examination of reality. Bong’s success of blending the darkly comic with the chilling and the gruesome shines on through in every scene, and rarely does he shy away from the precise gravity of the crimes.
Perhaps Bong’s earliest breakthrough, “Memories of Murder” found triumph in widespread acclaim, from Cannes to the South Korea Grand Bell Awards. Fittingly, just last month had Neon announced bringing a newly remastered version of Bong’s “Memories of Murder” to US theaters for an exclusive two night screening on October 19 and 20. On it, Bong himself remarked,
“[This] case is an intertwined web of tragedy and black comedy—the eerie comedy that blooms within the air during the most absurd of times. The film is an uncanny, yet natural, mixture of horror and comedy because we were truly living in such times… I once threw my entire body and soul to create this film, and now my eyes are on how this film will plow through the long tunnel of time as it greets a new chapter in the fall of 2020 in the US.”
While “Memories of Murder” may have been on a larger scale compared to the Korean director’s debut, its $2.8 million USD budget is quickly shadowed by a $12 million dollar monster film – 2006’s “The Host”. After a fictional, amphibious monster – the product of American military carelessness on Korea grounds – surfaces from the Han River and brings about death and destruction, Park Gang-du (played again by Song Kang-ho) and his family must attempt to retrieve his daughter, who was abducted by the creature.
Though there already existed a prescence of U.S. influnece and intervention in the backdrops of “Memories of Murder”, the political commentary towards the U.S. is only further augmented in “The Host”. The inciting events were inspired by a real life event in 2000 where a Korean mortician working for the U.S. military was ordered to dump a large amount of formaldehyde down the drain, resulting in environmental concerns and some antagonism to the United States. Bong’s sharp – and near satirical – criticism of the indifference towards local culture fuels much of “The Host” and will not be the last time he examines the effects of Westernized influences, albeit in different manners.
Like “The Host”, Bong’s fourth feature “Mother” was released in 2009 to criticial and box office success. Akin to Lee Chang-dong’s 2010 drama “Poetry”, “Mother” follows the themes of parenthood and motherhood in extraordinary circumstances, resulting in a suspenseful and heartbreaking examination of familial dynamics and sacrifice.
Mother (played by Kim Hye-ja) is a widow trying to solve the mystery of a murder charge herr son, Yoon Do-joon, played by Won Bin, is arrested with. Yoon Do-joon is known in town for his intellectual disability, resulting in a strong and protective attachment coming from Kim’s unnamed widow. Like “Memories of Murder”, “Mother” appears from afar as a genre-driven narrative, albeit genre-bending one, as all Bong films are. The film is obviously unlike many others of the genre. It’s a smart blend of mystery, dark comedy, and the idiosyncrasies unique to only Korean and Asian cultures as it all slowly blends into a storm of deception, chaos and ambiguities. As emotional and intimate the journey may be, it’s also a remorseless and cold one, and it’s bound to leave audiences unsure how to think and feel – a feeling as mixed and uncertain as the entire film itself is.
Bong’s American co-productions are, to say the least, an absolute source of fascination. He follows “Mother” up with the 2013 sci-fi thriller “Snowpiercer” before the 2017 Netflix-helmed “Okja”. Both are critically acclaimed, both are released under unique circumstances and formats, and both are, perhaps most significantly, a multicultural blend that encapsulates Bong’s directorial uniqueness.
“Snowpiercer”, which stars big-named Hollywood stars Chris Evans, Tilda Swinton, Octavia Spencer, John Hurt and Ed Harris, marks Bong’s English-languaged debut, yet the film’s production is made even more interesting in the international forces behind it. In addition to the Weinstein Company, “Snowpiercer” was also made with the European production studios Barrandov Studios (of Czech Republic) and Korda Studios (of Hungary). South Korea’s influence can be felt everywhere as well: Song Kang-ho reunites with Bong along with cinematographer Hong Kyung-pyo, who was also Bong’s director of photography on “Mother” (and would go on to work on “Parasite” and 2018’s “Burning”). Like “Parasite”, the settings and structure of the narrative corresponds with a larger societal metaphor on class and culture – a factor that is brought to the screen in an engrossing experience by Ondrej Nekvasil’s brilliant production design and the gorgeous 35mm film.
The tension between Bong Joon-ho’s strong directorial visions came head to head with the then producer Harvey Weinstein’s attempts to intervene with the film, ultimately resulting in a compromise: a limited theatrical release of a director’s cut. The irony came in that to Weinstein – who judged in numbers and dollars – it was a punishment to Bong, yet to Bong, the freedom of final cut and creative freedom was everything he ever wanted. In an interview with Vulture, Bong commented,
“Maybe for [Weinstein], it was some kind of punishment to a filmmaker who doesn’t do what he wants. But for me, we were all very happy. Yeah! Director’s cut!”
Bong’s follow-up, “Okja”, was similarly unique in its form of release, that being its collaboration with Netflix. While it’s not uncommon for big-named directors to pair up with streaming release platforms for a large budget release – Aaron Sorkin’s upcoming “The Trial of Chicago 7” for October and David Fincher’s upcoming “Mank” for November certainly attests to that – it was still considered a rarity back then.
“Okja” follows a Korean girl trying to retrieve her genetically-modified superpig, called Okja, from a corporation attempting to create a new species of produced pork. Like the titular character, “Okja” is a distinct hybrid of its own kind – both in front and behind screen. Like “Snowpiercer”, “Okja” is consists of primarily a American-ensemble cast (with the exception of Ahn Seo-hyun’s leading Mija”) trotting across varying global locations (again, South Korea and the US, which really was filmed in Vancouver and British Columbia) filmed with an international crew.
With its naive but stubbornly childish protagonist and set pieces packed with elegance and kineticism in its composition, “Okja” is packed with a strange magicism that is almost reminiscent of Hayao Miyazacki. Yet, like Bong’s last monster flick (and the twist he manages to bring to all his genre projects), “Okja” morphs into its own twist with a constant darkness that steers the story from purely kid-friendly. The corporate cynicism and reality of the food industry is never shied away from, and in typical Bong-fashion, often nearly diverges into satire and absurdity as Lumet’s corporate satire “Network” did.
It’s incredibly sensational to see Korea’s staple of critical social commentary, violence and dark humour so seamlessly sown into the fabric of Westernized Hollywood films. Even when the actor in front of the camera may be speaking English, there’s no doubt that the words lived and breathed in are absolutely Bong’s. The extent to which his explorations of recurring capitalist themes are universalized without losing the specificities of his idiosyncratic genius speaks volumes. But perhaps, in the greatest twist even Bong might not have predicted himself, his return to Korean cinema was precisely what captured his voice and themes at its most ubiquitous.
If somehow, for some reason, you have managed to still not watch “Parasite” yet, and perhaps still don’t know precisely what it’s about (as it might not be the easiest film to explain), the best way for your own viewing experience is likely to go into it blind.
“Parasite”, like all of Bong’s previous cinematic endeavors and perhaps even more so this time, is a case of absolute intrigue. Like the whirlwind of suspense and chaos it is, it begins as a satire, divulges midway into a heist film cum house-invasion thriller, and ends on a note so heart-pounding and emotionally draining that one loses track on the genre it even is (of course, the answer is simple: it’s a Bong Joon-ho film). Bong manages to grab audiences by their minds and hearts and draw them into the motivations and goals of the protagonists, however morally ambiguous, and compels for us to cheer for them, only to sweep the rug from under us and rebuild that faith and unity again and again. In the director’s own words, it’s “a comedy without clowns, a tragedy without villains”.
The first act of the film begins with Ki-woo (Choi Woo-shik), an unemployed 20-something son of the Kim family, gets a tutoring position in the house of the wealthy Park family, whose residence lays at a geographically location. His family lives down the neighborhood in a semi-basement apartment, where father Ki-taek (Song Kang-ho) and mother Chung-sook (Chang Hyae-jin) need to resort to folding pizza boxes for the local restaurant to support their own living. Bong’s explicit examination of the class system is sharp and critical: the film’s very opening is one that centers on Ki-woo and sister Ki-jung (Park So-dam) attempting to find a new free wi-fi to leech off of.
But who is the leecher, and who the leeched? On the other side of town lives the rich Park family: the wealthy businessman Mr Park (Lee Sun-kyun), his charming but overly anxious wife, Yeon-kyo (Cho Yeo-jeong), and their son and daughter. Their lives are an embodiment of not only capitalist culture, but also everything it represents. Western cultures and casual name droppings are treated with reverence and automatic trust; the architecture are cold and sleek and all about one’s elevation (or descension); and the very nuances and minute details of characters’ lives, ticks and behaviors add towards an increasing sense of frustration and funneled anger.
Layers upon layers; plots within plots; wheels within wheels: “Parasite” strives (and reaches) to its highest potential throughout its entire runtime by never failing to keep up in its superbly designed allegory. Like composer Jung Jae-il’s captivating score, “Parasite” is a ruthless and unforgiving machine that works in perfect harmony at every moment and every second with its cast and crew, sets and lights, frames and sounds. It will make you laugh in shock at one moment, then recoil in disgust at having done so the next, and like the best of Bong’s films, leave audiences shattered, emotionally turmoiled, and wondering on how the magician pulled such a trick before their eyes.
Thankfully, this likely isn’t the last we’ll see of the film, as, in yet another unexpected twist, HBO has announced an Americanized English-language remake of “Parasite”, made as a miniseries under the vision of Bong himself and Adam McKay (known for 2018’s Vice, which also garnered plenty of awards and acclaim). Just as of March has three-time Oscar nominee actor Mark Ruffalo confirmed his involvement with the series.
While this isn’t the first time a Bong film has been remade into a television series – one can just as easily turn to TNT’s muddy TV reboot of Snowpiercer as one can pretend the American remake of Park’s Oldboy never happened – the presence of Bong at the helm of the primary creative force is nonetheless greatly reassuring.
While much of the future remains unknown, one thing is for certain – the futures of both Bong Joon-Ho and “Parasite” has never been brighter.