Director Park Chan-Wook 박찬욱 [“Decision to Leave”]

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January 22, 2013
'Stoker' Director Says Audiences Lured Him to Hollywood
The ChosunIlbo
Park Chan-wook is one of three leading Korean directors who are making their debuts in Hollywood this year, along with Bong Joon-ho and Kim Ji-woon. In doing so, Park, the man who made "Oldboy" an international success, managed to attract the talents of Nicole Kidman for his latest flick "Stoker." 
But the man known for his so-called Vengeance Trilogy, which includes "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance" (2002), "Oldboy" (2003) and "Sympathy for Lady Vengeance" (2005), says he was more attracted to the audience Hollywood provides access to than the big stars. 
"The main reason I made the movie in the U.S. is because of the size of the audience there. Even if a movie made in Korea is screened here [in the U.S.], the number of cinemagoers who are prepared to sit through [two hours of] subtitles are very limited. And this is also true in other countries," said Park.
/AFP
"Stoker" premiered in Park City, Utah on Sunday (local time). The film had its world premiere at Sundance, the world's biggest independent film festival, which opened on Thursday. The script was written by "Prison Break" star Wentworth Miller, and Nicole Kidman and rising star Mia Wasikowska play mother and daughter in this stylish thriller. The film cost US$12 million to make. 
"Whether it becomes a hit or not is not the most important thing for me. I want to attract more diverse audiences. Another reason is that I can work with a broader range of actors. This means my world can almost connect with the world of those directors the actors have previously worked with. For example, working with Nicole Kidman was, for me, akin to meeting [the late] Stanley Kubrick or [Danish filmmaker] Lars Von Trier." 
When asked why she agreed to make the movie after the film premiered, Kidman said her decision was based solely on the fact that Park was directing it.

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January 22, 2013
Rave Reviews for Park Chan-wook's STOKER
First Reactions Pour in Following Sundance Premiere by Pierce Conran KOBIZ
  PARK Chan-wook’s highly anticipated Hollywood debut Stoker was finally unveiled to a sold out audience this past Sunday at the Sundance Film Festival. Mere moments following the drawing of the curtain, critics took to the web and tweeted their initial impressions. Now the first reviews have appeared and while a handful are negative, the notices are for the most part overwhelmingly positive. The film’s polished aesthetics and gothic tone are getting particular attention and all agree that PARK has not compromised his style in his crossover to the West. The first piece to appear online, from Twitch’s Ryland ALDRICH, stated that PARK fans would not be disappointed: “A highly stylized mystery, the film delivers what the South Korean auteur does best: moody mise-en-scene with intense moments of ultra-violence.” Jeremy KAY from The Guardian wrote that “PARK Chan-wook's long-awaited English-language debut is a gorgeously mounted family mystery dressed up as a gothic fairy tale.” 
The film’s cast, which includes Mia WASIKOWKSA, Nicole KIDMAN and Matthew GOODE, is also drawing praise from many quarters. Screen Daily’s David D’ARCY says that “WASIKOWSKA has shown a new depth here, and is sure to be pursued for it,” while “GOODE hits a seductive tone of the urbane and the unctuous as a charmer with tales of world travel and a killer instinct.” Meanwhile, Rodrigo PEREZ of The Playlist was one of the few critics not bowled over as he thought that it was a “brutally empty, deeply unfortunate movie, and PARK Chan-wook's jackhammer of a tool he calls a brush is, on this evidence, something that should be locked away.” However, the overall response to Stoker has been strong. Guy LODGE from Variety found it to be “a splendidly demented gumbo of Hitchcock thriller, American Gothic fairy tale and a contemporary kink all PARK's own.” The Hollywood Reporter’s John DEFORE offered the feature especially high praise as he felt that with his latest “PARK offers one of the most artful chillers in ages.” Stoker will next be seen at the International Film Festival Rotterdam and Glasgow Film Festival in February before bowing in Korea on February 28th and the US on March 1st. Fox Searchlight is handling distribution.

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 January 23, 2013
Director Park Chan Wook's Hollywood Film 'Stoker' Draws Favorable Reviews
CJ E&M enewsWorld Oh, MiJung Translation Credit : Erika Kim 
Director Park Chan Wook′s Hollywood debut film Stoker managed to garner much praise from local critics.
On January 20 (local time), Stoker premiered at the 29th Sundance Film Festival held in Utah. Director Park Chan Wook and leads Nicole Kidman, Mia Wasikowska and Matthew Goode were present.

After its premiere, the film managed to receive rave reviews, even bringing some to call it the most exciting film ever.
Director Park Chan Wook said after moving onstage to tumultuous applause, "Stoker is my first film in America. The setting in which the story takes place is in itself an independent world of its own. The film is about a special story surrounding a special girl who seems like she popped out from a fairy tale or a dream. I hope you all come to enjoy this dream too."
Nicole Kidman and the other actors all answered that the reason they decided to star in the film was because of Park Chan Wook, proving yet again the influence the director wields in the world.
Stoker is about what happens to a girl when an uncle she never knew of appears before her on her 18th birthday.
It was produced by Ridley Scott and the late Tony Scott. The scenario was written by Wentworth Miller, and the music was directed by Clint Mansell of Black Swan. Director of photography Jung Jung Hoon, who previously joined Park Chan Wook in the films Old Boy, Sympathy for Lady Vengeance and Thirst, again participated in the film.
Stoker will premiere in Korea, the first country to premiere the film, on February 28.
Photo credit: 20th Century Fox

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January 28, 2013
'Stoker' hot, 'Last Stand' not so much
By Lee Kyung-min, Park Eun-jee Korea JoongAng Daily
‘Now that their movies are made through Hollywood studios, the Korean directors are going to reach a wider Western audience.’
Right; “The Last Stand”, the first English-language film by Kim Ji-woon received mixed reactions while Park Chan-wook’s “Stoker” (left) garnered a series of positive reviews after its premiere at this year’s Sundance International Film Festival last week. Provided by 20th Century Fox Korea, CJ E&M
LOS ANGELES and PARK CITY, Utah - The champagne in Seoul was on ice as directors Park Chan-wook and Kim Ji-woon made their Hollywood debuts and the domestic film industry looks to expand the market reach and influence of Korean movies in 2013.
Park’s “Stoker” has been a critical success, but the bubbly isn’t flowing yet. Kim’s “The Last Stand” has received a lukewarm reception, despite featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger in a starring role. 
Still, the very fact that Korean directors are working in the film capital of the world is a big plus. 
“So far, the two directors’ reputations have been largely limited to those in the film industry or a specific group of moviegoers,” says Lee Nam, an assistant professor of film studies at Chapman University in Orange County, California. “Now that their movies are made through Hollywood studios, the Korean directors are going to reach a wider Western audience.”
While Park and Kim are at the forefront of Korean cinema, their work stands in stark contrast in terms of genre and tone. 
Fox Searchlight, a subsidiary of 20th Century Fox, is in charge of producing and distributing Park’s psychological thriller “Stoker” in the United States, while Kim’s action flick “The Last Stand” is produced by Di Bonaventura Pictures and distributed by Lionsgate.
“The Last Stand” has been deemed fun and popcorn-friendly, whereas “Stoker” is widely characterized as an art-house film with a style only Park could pull off.
Park’s English-language feature debut captivated media and critical attention after its screening at the 2013 Sundance International Film Festival that ended last Friday.
Starring Nicole Kidman, Mia Wasikowska and Matthew Goode, “Stoker” delves into the enigmatic relationships among a teenage girl and her mother, and an uncle who moved into their house. 
“Stoker” scores an average rating of 8.7 out of 10 from eight critics on the Rotten Tomatoes Web site and 95 percent of the site’s users say they would like to watch the mystery film.
Park and the three leading cast members were surrounded by a throng of reporters and fans after the screening. A similar scene occurred at a Korean Film Council event. 
A series of positive reviews followed. Variety’s Guy Lodge praised “Stoker” as “a splendidly demented gumbo of Hitchcock thriller, American Gothic fairy tale and a contemporary kink all Park’s own.” 
The Hollywood Reporter said the film is “one of the most artful chillers in ages.”
However, even the first leading role in nearly a decade for Schwarzenegger, the former California governor, has not been enough to generate much excitement about “The Last Stand.” 
It has a 60 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 115 reviews, with a consensus that “there’s nothing particularly distinguished about it.”
“Not the most iconic choice for Schwarzenegger to announce that he’s back, but not one that’s completely prefab, either,” said Tom Russo of the Boston Globe.
Others were more critical. “Kim keeps things moving briskly and the members of the strong supporting cast don’t seem to mind that they’re playing flimsy types,” said Christy Lemire of the Associated Press. “Everyone’s just here for a mindless good time.” 
The Hollywood Reporter’s Todd McCarthy said the film “lacks any kind of real distinction.”
The Lionsgate movie earned just $7.2 million over the three-day holiday weekend and ranked 10th on the day of its release, according to Box Office Mojo.
Observers say “The Last Stand” has been overshadowed by Andres Muschietti’s “Mama” and Kathryn Bigelow’s “Zero Dark Thirty.”
Kim’s film is scheduled for release in Korea on Feb. 21. “Stoker” will be released Feb. 28 in Korea and March 1 in the United States. 

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February 6, 2013
Park Chan-wook, Stoker
By Jean Noh ScreenDaily.com
Park Chan-wook talks to Jean Noh about adapting to Hollywood and bringing his unique style to his first English-language film.
After directing films such as Oldboy and Sympathy For Lady Vengeance, Korean film-maker Park Chan-wook had been fielding offers from Hollywood for years. He finally took the leap with Stoker, his first English-language film. The thriller, starring Nicole Kidman, Mia Wasikowska and Matthew Goode, made its well-received world premiere at Sundance and screened as the closing film in Rotterdam.
Originally written by Prison Break star Wentworth Miller, Stoker was on the 2010 Black List of best unproduced Hollywood screenplays. Park says he initially favoured it for his first English-language film because of its approach to dialogue.
“It wasn’t a film centred on dialogue and there were a lot of parts that were expressed without words,” he says, noting he enjoys expressing things visually and with sounds other than words.
“Wentworth’s script was good because there was a lot of space a director could fill in. It was a script that had the potential to come out in different versions, depending on whether Ridley Scott or Bong Joon-ho had made it. There was plenty of room for me to breathe life into it,” says Park.
The film centres around India (Wasikowska) whose father dies as she turns 18. A mysterious uncle (Goode) returns for the funeral and a triangle fraught with tension forms between India, her uncle and her mother (Kidman).
Describing Stoker as a thriller with aspects of horror and romance, Park says: “I was interested in girls’ coming-of-age stories - as with I’m A Cyborg But That’s OK. I liked that the story had few characters so we could observe them more closely, not just superficially. I look for density in my films.”
Ridley Scott, the late Tony Scott and Michael Costigan produced the film for Fox Searchlight Pictures, Indian Paintbrush and Scott Free. Fox is distributing Stoker, which opens on February 28 in South Korea and March 1 in North America and the UK.
Scott Free sent the screenplay to Park’s manager Sara Bottfeld at Industry Entertainment, and the director immediately liked the script.
“I had a long session with Wentworth discussing the film, and then went and rewrote it several times,” says Park. He had the Stoker screenplay translated into Korean, worked on it and had it translated back into English with him editing the translation line by line with his producer Wonjo Jeong to make sure everything was accurate.
When it came to actual production, Park had to learn to shoot fast again for Hollywood. “Working as a well-known director in the Korean film industry, with increasingly abundant resources, I had started getting slower at shooting. It was good because I could do everything carefully and elaborately. I had nearly 100 shooting days on Thirst. And then I was faced with 40 days for Stoker. It was disconcerting at first, but then I remembered I shot my debut feature in 30 days,” he says.
Oldboy in a new town
Even though he adapted quickly, Park did worry about the results. “In Korea, I’d be able to watch playbacks of each take on the monitors and only give the OK when there was really no problem. I edited on set to make sure there wasn’t anything lacking and to make sure shot A connected smoothly to shot B. But in the US there wasn’t any time for playbacks, and certainly none for editing on location,” he says. “Fortunately, in the end we didn’t have any of the problems I worried about.”
What was it like working with Hollywood actors? “Nicole is a pro. She never gets fazed, no matter how extreme an interpretation I come out with. She’s worked on such a wide spectrum of films that she doesn’t get surprised by anything. And she’s done so much herself that she likes to do new things. There are two kinds of actors. One is the kind that does as they always have done, and the other is the kind that doesn’t like to do what they’ve done before. She probably would have been bored if I gave her a conventional take. In that sense, she keeps a director alert,” he says.
Wasikowska was a pleasant surprise for him. “Mia is unusually thoughtful for her age [23 years old] and has the ability to see the script as a whole. She doesn’t need to always express herself intensely or dominate each shot because she knows even if she stays still, that’s the right thing to do and she will naturally dominate in the flow of the script. She doesn’t overact and that’s something usually only seasoned veterans know,” he says.
Of Goode, he says: “I first saw Matthew in Match Point and always thought he never got the attention his capabilities deserved. I took to him right away on our first video call. He has sculpted features, acting skill, wit and humour - flawless as an actor. We worked together to make the character what it is.”
Park worked with the help of a translator and says rehearsals were essential to cut down time on the shoot. “I went over the screenplay line by line with the actors in pre-production and explained why I had written it the way I had. If we disagreed on something, we would go home and think about it and come back to it the next day. If we hadn’t done that, we wouldn’t have been able to finish on time. The script is the kind that could be open to interpretation and could be done this way or that, so it was important to get that settled in pre-production,” he says. Once that was done, he had little trouble communicating on set even with the language difference.
One sort of communication that came new to Park was the kind a director on a Hollywood production is required to have with the producers and studio. “Korea has its studios, but not as powerful as in Hollywood, and since I’m a well-known director they never interfered in my work. So I was nonplussed at first to get the studio’s opinion on everything from dialogue to costumes,” he confesses. “But they’re not doing it to obstruct the director, and it doesn’t mean the director doesn’t get to do what he wants. I just had to go through the additional process of explaining, arguing and convincing them. In the end, it wasn’t like I didn’t get to make the film I wanted. They listened, and our mutual confidence and respect grew through this process. When we all were satisfied with the result, I realised we were all on the same team,” says Park.
The director is currently working on a Korean script, but wants that to be the next film he shoots after another English-language film. “Shooting only once in the English-language market and then having a gap doesn’t seem like a good idea. I’d like to solidify my standing and make it easier for audiences to remember me,” he says.
While projects are being arranged, he is also producing Bong Joon-ho’s Snowpiercer, which is due out in August. “Snowpiercer is historic in that it has Korean film-makers and a Korean studio employing stars from the US and UK, shooting on location with a multinational crew. A lot is riding on it,” he says.
In addition, he is co-directing shorts with his brother Park Chan-kyong, an up-and-coming film-maker in his own right.

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February 21, 2013
Making of and becoming ‘Stoker’
Director Park Chan-wook and actress Mia Wasikowska share their experience working together
By Claire Lee The Korea Herald


Director Park Chan-wook (right) and Mia Wasikowska pose for a photo during a press conference promoting their film “Stoker” at Park Hyatt Seoul in Seoul, Thursday. (Yonhap News)
Following the successful press premiere of famed local director Park Chan-wook’s Hollywood debut “Stoker,” the film’s leading actress Mia Wasikowska made a meaningful first visit to Park’s home country.
“It’s something we talked about since our first meeting,” the Australian actress said during a press conference promoting the film in Seoul on Thursday. “Director Park told me when the film is finally made and being released, I should come to Korea. And I always said I’d love to. So it’s exciting to be here and feels quite surreal.”
The 23-year-old actress, whose previous roles include Cary Fukunaga’s “Jane Eyre” and Alice in Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland,” was selected as one of the highest-grossing film stars in 2010 by Forbes. She is starring as India Stoker, a mourning teenager who lost her father to a mysterious accident on her 18th birthday, in Park’s visually striking coming-of-age tale. 
The young girl then receives an unexpected visit from her long-lost uncle Charlie (played by Matthew Goode), whose enigmatic presence intrigues her. 
“Director Park was definitely different from the directors I worked with in the past,” said the actress, when asked to share her experience working with Park. 
“In the beginning we weren’t sure how the translation would go because I’d never worked like that before. But within a couple of days it was so easy and seamless; it wasn’t even something that we noticed very much. 
“I think what struck me the most (about Park) was how much thought was put into the details, the visual references and metaphors that always sort of link back to themselves and different points in the film,” she added. “It was very unique.”
For Park, the best part of working in Hollywood was the people he “got to work with” there, including Wasikowska. 
“Mia really knows how to see the big picture,” said Park. “When she’s acting, Mia doesn’t focus only on her performance; she reads the flow of the entire film. Unlike most young actors and actresses, she doesn’t always show her everything, which I think intrigues the viewers more.” 
Its script was written by British-American actor and screenwriter Wentworth Miller, who enjoyed much popularity in Korea for his performance as Michael Scofield in the American TV series “Prison Break.” Wasikowska’s costars include Nicole Kidman and Matthew Goode. Its music was created by Clint Mansell, who is best known for his film score for the 2010 psychological thriller “Black Swan.”
“Philip Glass, who composed a piano score for the movie, is someone that I ardently admired since I was little,” said Park. “I’ve also always loved the works of Mary Allen Mark, who took the photo for the official poster. She does amazing photojournalism.”
The least favorite part of the whole experience was the time pressure, said Park. “I had to shoot this movie in a total of 40 sessions,” said Park. “That’s only about half amount of the time that I usually need for shooting. It was very stressful.”
Just like Park, who is known for his visually magnetic works, Wasikowska also knows how to capture and play with images. She is in fact an avid photographer in her spare time, known to take photos on film sets. One of her on-set photographs, which features her “Jane Eyre” costar Jamie Bell and director Cary Fukunaga, became the finalist in the National Photographic Portrait Prize in 2011 in her home country of Australia. Both her parents are photographers. 
“Mia takes really good pictures,” said Park. “It was nice to see her sneaking out her little camera and pressing the shutter at our film set, while I’m explaining about the scenes. She really has an unusual eye for things.”
“Stoker” opens in theaters on Feb. 28. 

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February 21, 2013
Director Park Chan-wook says fast production pace made him sweat in Hollywood
By Shim Sun-ah YonhapNews
SEOUL, Feb. 21 (Yonhap) -- Acclaimed South Korean director Park Chan-wook on Thursday revealed how shooting a film in Hollywood was a nightmare because of the fast pace of production that forced him to struggle to keep up.
   "I was too busy on the set," Park said, talking to local reporters about his experience of making "Stoker," his Hollywood directorial debuting film.
   The fast pace of production "made me sweat every second till the last minute because in the United States, I could take only half of the shooting time that I normally have in South Korea. That was the most difficult experience. Frankly speaking, I barely completed the movie."
   
But the auteur best known for his "Vengeance Trilogy" and its crown jewel, "Old Boy," succeeded in drawing acclaim again from world film critics and reporters when "Stoker" was premiered during the latest Sundance Film Festival last month. "Stoker" was shown during a media preview in South Korea on Tuesday before its official release on Feb. 28. It is due to open in U.S. theaters on March 1.
   When asked about how he infused his own style into the foreign film, Park said he just tried to meet the U.S. film studio Fox Searchlight Pictures' expectations to show the best of his directing skills.
   "I think the company asked me to come to direct a film because they liked my movie world or my unique style, if any, and respected it and wanted me to make full use of it," Park said. "I bet when they asked a person who doesn't speak English at all to make a film, they probably wanted the person to do what he or she can do the best. So I did what they expected from me."
   Park brought his long-time colleague, cinematographer Chung Chung-hoon with him to the United States, which he said was a big help.
   "The best part of my experience of working in the United States was," he says, "to meet such good actors," talking about collaborating with Hollywood stars Nicole Kidman, Mia Wasikowska and Matthew Goode on the set in Tennessee.
   "There are many good actors in South Korea, of course, but they are not Mia, anyway. I also had a chance to meet Nicole Kidman," he said with a laugh.
   In the thriller, Kidman and Wasikowska played the mother and her teenage daughter, who encounters a mysterious uncle (played by Goode) after the sudden death of her father.
   Park also praised the musical score for the film and the set photographer. Park said Philip Glass, who composed the piano music for "Stoker," has been adored by him since his childhood.
   "I was also shocked when I first listened to the music of Clint Mansell, the music director of the film," said Park. "Mary Ellen Mark who took photos is a person whom I really admire."
   He said he chose the screenplay by Wentworth Miller for his first English-language film because it had much room for coloring in his own way.
   He changed many parts of the film, but kept most of the key theme and the descriptions of characters in Miller's screenplay because it was "really good."
   "What I tried to do was to upgrade the strong points of the screenplay to their highest level," he said.
   Park expressed hope that his first English-language film would be well received by movie fans in his home country as well as in the U.S.

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February 22, 2013
Old Boy meets Hitchcock
Park’s Hollywood debut is dark, gut-wrenching, and beautiful 
By Yun Suh-young The Korea Times

Director Park Chan-wook and actress Mia Wasikowska pose in front of the cameras before a press event for their latest film, Stoker, in front of the Yeouido CGV theater in Seoul Thursday.   / Yonhap

Park Chan-wook, Korean cinema’s undisputed maestro of the dark, seems to consider films as an exercise in intestinal fortitude. In his consistently gut-wrenching films, every aspect seems to be overblown ― the violence, action, pace and expression of anger, sadness, despair and regret.
Park’s talent is all about finding ways to have all the aspects work in tandem and the results are unbelievably dark films that display the prefect poise and balance to keep the audience glued to their seats no matter how uncomfortable they are.
"Stoker," Park’s American debut that will open in Korean theaters on Feb. 28, is another horrifying thriller that bludgeons moviegoers into submission.
While execution has always been Park’s strength, what also stands out is his devotion to make his theater of violence visually stunning. 
India (Mia Wasikowska), right, finds herself equally horrified and infatuated by Charlie (Mathew Goode), a man who claims to be her uncle and appeared after her father’s death.
Like his previous works “Old Boy’’ (2003) and "Lady Vengeance" (2005), Park here makes an effort to deliver stomach-churning violence in the most aesthetic way possible ― benefiting from the presence of his trusted cinematographer Chung Chung-hoon. As a result, Stoker is both mesmerizing and tormenting to watch.
"Some of the scripts that I read have me thinking that the product will be very much the same no matter who directs it. But there are scripts like this one that offers immense room and potential to deliver something different," Park said in a recent news conference.
"This is not to say that the script wasn’t a finished product or needed improvement. There were just many spaces that I could creatively add stuff in. The opening and closing scenes are an example. Wentworth Miller had it all, but I was just trying to make the best out of the script.’’
The movie revolves around the story of India (Mia Wasikowska), an 18-year-old grieving the death of her father Richard (Dermot Mulroney), who doubled as her best friend.
Then one day, a man who claims to be her uncle, Charlie (Mathew Goode), shows up and moves in with her and her mother Evelyn (Nicole Kidman). Evelyn begins to emotionally gravitate towards Charlie, a man who she never previously met. India, on the contrary, is reluctant to accept Charlie.
As much as India tries to push him away, Charlie attempts just as hard to get close to her. Their interactions eventually expose Charlie’s gothic past colored by violence and murder. And this is what makes Charlie sexually attracted to India.
Stoker undoubtedly has a Hitchcock-like feel, a link confirmed by screenwriter Wentworth Miller who said he was influenced by the Hitchcock classic "Shadow of Doubt.’’  
Miller of course is more known to Korean fans as the actor who played Michael Scofield in the popular American television series "Prison Break.’’ Miller worked on the script of Stoker for more than eight years, long before producer Michael Costigan pitched Park to shoot it. The end result leaves a good first impression for Miller’s future as a writer.
How Park creates the build-up to the shocking ending is impressive. The more alert movie goers will notice that the opening and closing scenes of the film will fit together like a jigsaw puzzle, highlighting Park’s attention to detail and creative use of symbolism.

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February 22, 2013
Park Chan Wook Talks about 'Stoker'
CJ E&M enewsWorld An So Hyoun  Translation Credit : Erika Kim  
Director Park Chan Wook, who has recently stepped into Hollywood, opened up on the quality of his film.




At the official press conference held for Stoker on February 21, Park Chan Wook was asked whether he had been hit with any difficulties while trying to make his film as high-quality as it is.
He answered, "If my pieces were unique, then Hollywood would have asked me to work with them because they liked that. They showed some respect in those aspects. They wanted me to do whatever they saw in me, and this came naturally. That they took in a person who can′t speak English would′ve meant that they wanted me to do whatever I′m good at. I did just that."
He added, "I was worried because I wasn′t able to check everything on set myself when we were so busy, but while editing, I found I hadn′t missed out on a lot. I think it was thanks to camera director Jung Jung Hoon."
Stoker is about how India (Mia Wasikowska), who lost her father from a sudden accident, meets her uncle Charles (Matthew Goode) whom she never knew existed. The people around her soon start disappearing after her uncle′s arrival. It premieres on February 28.
Photo credit: Hea Jung Min

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February 21, 2013
Yonhap Feature 
Korean directors go global with latest films
By Jason Bechervaise Contributing writer YonhapNews
SEOUL, Feb. 21 (Yonhap) -- For Bong Joon-ho, a critically acclaimed South Korean film director who has built a reputation overseas, a global project would seem like the next logical step. Though his next piece will screen internationally this summer, that wasn't originally the goal.
   What would become "Snowpiercer" began back in 2005 when Bong read the French comic "Le Transperceneige," a chronicle of the world's last remaining inhabitants after a man-made ice age forces them to traverse the globe on a train.
   "I was so fascinated by the graphic novel, and I wanted to make a very exciting train and sci-fi movie. The story focused on the human condition and social system on the train. That made me crazy, that's why I made this movie," he said in a recent interview.
   "When the ice age comes, it doesn't just come to Korea, it's a worldwide occurrence, so I thought having all the passengers be Korean wouldn't make sense," he said. "Therefore, I tried to get an international cast. As a result, it became an international film, but that's not how I intended it to be."

Director Bong Joon-ho. His film "Snowpiercer" will debut internationally in the summer. (Courtesy of Jason Bechervaise)

Poster of Bong Joon-ho's new film "Snowpiercer" (Courtesy of CJ E&M Pictures)
Though not necessarily intentional, as Korean films become an increasingly prevalent feature at renowned film festivals across the globe, many of the country's top directors like Bong are moving on beyond their comfortable home borders.
   Kim Jee-woon, who also says his dream "wasn't going to Hollywood," made his Hollywood debut last month with the U.S. release of action-packed "The Last Stand" starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Park Chan-wook's "Stoker" will be screened in the U.S. and U.K. on March 1.
   Bong cultivated an international audience through his films such as "Memories of Murder" (2003) and "The Host" (2006). "This time the scale is a lot bigger, and it will get a wide release in the U.S, so the character of the movie is slightly different, but I try to keep my own movie style. I think that's the most important thing," he said.
   Maintaining one's style would have been one of a number of challenges for these directors as they made their leap to the global stage.
   For Kim, who established a strong reputation in Korea and overseas for tackling a number of different genres -- from the horror "A Tale of Two Sisters" (2003) to the western "The Good, The Bad, The Weird" (2008) -- his concern was things getting lost in the translation.
   "Making movies is always something I have done, so it didn't feel like anything special, but it made me think hard how Asians, Americans and Europeans would understand the humor," he said. "So in the early stages, after shooting a scene, as a test, I would show it to the whole team, and the reaction wasn't too bad. This boosted my confidence."
   Invariably there are differences when working in Hollywood.
   "In Korea, when it comes to working on a movie, a director is like a king. But in Hollywood, the producer and the studio all have an equal say, so when the director has an idea, the director has to persuade the producer and studio to make them agree," Kim said.
   Bong's "Snowpiercer" isn't a Hollywood production, having been funded by a Korean studio. But 90 percent of the crew were either English or American, and everything proceeded according to the American way, union regulations among them. "At first it was quite difficult to get used to, but we got used to it," said Bong.
   Administrative things aside, these directors are all too aware of the risks involved in these global projects. Having cast Schwarzenegger, Kim admits to the pressure of high expectations by the audience and the need to make something new, and while it's ultimately up to the audience to decide, he feels as a team, they were able to handle these demands.

South Korean director Kim Jee-woon holds a press conference in Los Angeles on Jan. 14, 2013 ahead of the U.S. release of his Hollywood movie "The Last Stand." (Yonhap file photo)

"If they (Korean directors) can expand their scope and have their talent seen by a wider audience, it would be a good thing," he said. "But I think Korean directors should take it slow and look into the details carefully before they go to Hollywood."
   Bong agrees. "Just being obsessed with going into Hollywood could destroy a career, so I think directors have to be careful."
   The global outreach of Korean directors initially may be individual projects, but in the end, it could raise the profile of Korea's cinema industry as a whole, as illustrated by Guillermo Del Toro and Ang Lee, according to Bong.
   After his movie "Hellboy" became a hit, Del Toro made a Spanish language film, "Pan's Labyrinth." Although the film is in Spanish, because it was made by Del Toro, people were interested in it, Bong said. "Ang Lee, too. Because he succeeded in Hollywood, whenever he makes a Chinese language film like 'Lust Caution,' he can reach a global audience, because it was made by Ang Lee.
   "Myself and Park Chan-wook for example, we can potentially deliver the same role -- working on an English language movie, then coming back to Korea and making Korean films. If (the movie) is good, people may like watching Korean films, too, so the profile of Korean films could be raised," he said.

Director Park Chan-wook ® with the cast of his movie "Stoker" -- (from L) Mia Wasikowska, Nicole Kidman and Matthew Goode -- at the Sundance Film Festival on Jan. 20, 2013.. (Provided by 20th Century Fox Korea)
And it's not just the directors who can benefit from the exposure, but the crew as well.
   "This time when I went to Hollywood, I didn't go by myself," Kim said. "I went with the camera director, music director and editing director. Looking at the results produced by them, Hollywood will see the high quality of Korean films and the crews are as good as any Hollywood crews," he said.
   Already, there are signs. "With Park Chan-wook's 'Stoker,' for example, the film was well shot, so Hollywood has expressed an interest in cinematographer Chung Chung-hoon," said Bong. "As a result, this also raises the profile of Korean crews as well."
   jase@koreanfilm.org.ukTwitter: @koreanjase

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February 24, 2013

Translating Park Chan-wook
Interpreter and film producer Jeong Won-jo shares his experience in making Park Chan-wook's 'Stoker'

By Claire Lee The Korea Herald

Park Chan-wook describes his ability as “more than perfect.” Actress Mia Wasikowska said working with him was so “easy and seamless.”

Of the many who worked behind the camera for Park Chan-wook’s Hollywood debut “Stoker,” film producer and interpreter Jeong Won-jo is the one who witnessed the English-language film’s production from the very beginning to the end. 


A scene from Park Chan-wook’s Hollywood debut “Stoker,” in which producer Jeong Won-jo participated as Park’s English-Korean translator. (20th Century Fox Korea)

Throughout the project, he was the famed director’s “all-around aide-de-camp”; all of Park’s directions were delivered to the crew through Jeong. From all sorts of press meetings to pre and post-production discussions, Jeong was Park’s official speaker in the English-language world. 

“Jeong wouldn’t just literally translate what he would say,” director Park told The Korea Herald. “He would add humor and the necessary explanations to my original words. He really was more than perfect as an interpreter.”


Film producer and translator Jeong Won-jo poses for a photo prior to an interview with The Korea Herald in Seoul on Friday. (Kim Myung-sub/The Korea Herald)

Jeong, who moved to New Zealand from his motherland Korea when he was 12, joined Park Chan-wook’s film company, Moho Film, in 2008. He studied marketing and commercial law in college in New Zealand, and worked for a local automobile maker and the New Zealand Medical Association, before stepping into the world of cinema through Michael Stephens, the attorney of New Zealander filmmaker Peter Jackson.

The Korea Herald sat down with Jeong in Seoul to discuss his experience working with director Park, producing “Stoker,” and some of the memorable moments of the making of the film.

The Korea Herald: What was it like to see the final product of ‘Stoker’ on screen?

Jeong: It’s enormously touching. It really is a Park Chan-wook film. From the very beginning, our major concern was to make a film that carries director Park’s signature style. For me personally, the movie, play by play, was a series of the exciting, cathartic, and precious moments where you’d think, ‘Oh, I remember having a discussion about that scene with director Park!’ or ‘Oh, I remember Mia talking to director Park about that.’ 

KH: How did you manage to be Park’s interpreter and producer at the same time?

Jeong: In a way, the two jobs are actually very similar to each other. They are both about conveying ideas and building the bridges. The jobs also required giving reminders and opinions. If director Park’s job was to create this film according to his vision, my job was to make sure the right elements came together and worked harmoniously in very much the way the director intended. It also was to make sure the communication between him and everyone else was everything it should be: timely and clear. 

KH: What was it like to work with Nicole Kidman, Mia Wasikowska and Matthew Goode?

Jeong: Actors and actresses are very observant and instinctive people. They are also very sensitive to language, and well-aware of how one’s facial expressions and body movement change when delivering their words. 

All of the actors and actresses had their chance to observe director Park during the pre-production phase, and it showed while shooting the film on the set. Director Park always said those who can act shouldn’t have many problems with the language barrier, and I think he was right from the very beginning.

Nicole very often understood what director Park said in Korean even before I started translating. She would sometimes understand what director Park wanted by looking at his finger pointing in a certain direction. It was very magical.

Matthew was also brilliant; such an intelligent guy. And Mia was a very hard worker, on top of her obvious talent. She’d always bring her copy of the script, filled with Post-it notes, to discuss her thoughts and questions whenever she’d have a casual lunch with director Park.

KH: What were some of the biggest challenges you faced while translating?

Jeong: I knew the time pressure was there, because director Park was only given half the amount of time he usually spends for shooting. That was also stressful to me, so I tried to understand everything about the shooting process during the pre-production phase. I wanted to avoid the kind of situation where things would be delayed because I didn’t understand what director Park said and have to ask him for explanations. 

KH: I hear you never received proper training in Korean-English translation.

Jeong: No. But being in the Korean community in New Zealand offered me countless opportunities to be an interpreter. Growing up, I took many part-time jobs as a translator for business occasions and events held by the Korean Embassy in New Zealand.

KH: You’ve been working very closely with director Park. What is he like in person?

Jeong: He is very gentle and articulate. He is a singular visionary and is a very collaborative person. And yet he is a very particular person because when collaborating, he always selects what works the best all the time. And he is the most cultured man that I know.

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February 22, 2013
South Korean Crossover in Hollywood

By MIKE HALE NYTimes
For nearly as long as there have been American movies there have been foreign directors making them, in a symbiotic arrangement that gives the visitors freedom, cash or exposure and the domestic film industry cachet and infusions of creativity. In Hollywood’s early years Europeans classed up the joint, particularly those from the center of the continent: von Stroheim, Lubitsch, Lang, Zinnemann. More recent waves of talent have washed in from Australia, Hong Kong and Latin America.
This year a new group is arriving on American screens: the South Koreans, representing a celebrated national cinema that has not had much crossover with Hollywood before now. It hadn’t been for lack of trying: the directors Park Chan-wook, Kim Ji-woon and Bong Joon-ho had all been approached by American producers over the years. But through the vagaries of career paths and production schedules each one’s first English-language production has been or is scheduled to be released this year.
“I thought it was such a coincidence,” said Mr. Park, director of “Stoker,” a dark coming-of-age story starring Mia Wasikowska, Matthew Goode and Nicole Kidman. “I  tried to come up with an answer, but I haven’t really reached a satisfying one. If you want to twist my arm, it probably took around the same amount of time for the interest from the American industry to turn into confidence in these three directors to be able helm U.S. productions, and it would have probably taken an equal amount of time for all three directors to ponder such a proposition.”
“Stoker,” which opens Friday, follows Mr. Kim’s “Last Stand,” the Arnold Schwarzenegger comeback vehicle released in January. Scheduled for later this year is Mr. Bong’s “Snowpiercer,” a comic-book-inspired fantasy starring Chris Evans (Captain America of “The Avengers”).
While South Korea’s colonization of the world’s popular culture through the so-called Korean Wave of soap operas, pop groups and, most recently, the ubiquitous “Gangnam Style” music video is well established, its films have remained a more specialized taste. Mr. Bong, Mr. Kim and Mr. Park, three of their country’s best known and most honored directors, are heroes of the international festival circuit who have all received career retrospectives at New York film societies and art houses. Mr. Park’s latest begins this week at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens. But they have also had strong fan bases in Hollywood because their style and restraint go hand in hand with a taste for visceral, often bloody stories in popular categories like horror and crime.
Asked what he thought American producers might be looking for from the Korean directors, Mr. Park, through a translator, answered reluctantly and carefully. “If Kim is a filmmaker who aspires to capture the most pure excitement from a genre, while Bong and I are the kind of filmmakers who try to bend the conventions of the genre and subvert the genre,” he said, “the commonality could be that compared with how bold we are in terms of subject matter. We are more classical in our style of filmmaking. In other words, we don’t follow trends, and we’re not dictated by trends. It’s not to say necessarily that’s what we can offer to American films, but how we are different, maybe that’s one way.”
“Stoker,” written by the American actor Wentworth Miller (of the TV series “Prison Break”), takes off from the premise of the great Alfred Hitchcock thriller “Shadow of a Doubt.” A charismatic relative, called Uncle Charlie in both films, pays a visit and charms his young, bored niece. Charlie is not as nice as he seems of course. In “Stoker”  the twist is that the niece’s peculiarities may be as pronounced as her uncle’s.
In the past Mr. Park has cited Hitchcock, along with Brian De Palma and David Cronenberg, as a primary inspiration for a body of work that has established him as South Korea’s most celebrated director, highlighted by the “revenge trilogy” of “Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance,” “Oldboy” and “Lady Vengeance.” He discounted the connection, though, in his decision to take on “Stoker.”
“I didn’t choose to do it because it had a connection to Hitchcock but despite those connections,” he said. “I tried not to be conscious of how much influence there was from Hitchcock.”
Cast and crew members were struck, however, by working methods that sound similar to those of Hitchcock (another foreign master who worked in America): meticulous attention to details of design and color and a very un-American level of preparation that included having the entire film storyboarded in advance, a practice Mr. Park has followed since his first hit, “J.S.A.: Joint Security Area” in 2000.
“He’s made the movie in his head already, in his brain,” said Matthew Goode, the British actor who plays Charlie. “It’s a level of attention to detail that’s extraordinary. He’s predetermined so much, down to the walls of the house needing to be a specific color of eggshell.”
The production designer, Thérèse DePrez, whose credits include Darren Aronofsky’s “Black Swan” and Stephen Frears’s “High Fidelity,” saw Mr. Park’s precise approach from close range, creating décors that amplified the characters’ personalities and devising character-specific color schemes: yellow for Ms. Wasikowska’s blooming niece, intense reds for Mr. Kidman’s sex-starved widow, browns and beiges for Mr. Goode’s ambiguous, repressed psychopath.
“His sense of composition and his meticulousness with every possible detail from the composition of a frame to the color of a shoelace — his sensibility to that kind of detail was something I’ve never come across before,” Ms. DePrez said. “Nothing was sheerly superficial, there was clearly a chain of logic to every choice we made, there was a reason for a color, a reason for a pattern.”
While the Westerners adjusted to his style, Mr. Park, who is used to working with a recurring group of actors and crew in South Korea, was adjusting to working with new people in a language he didn’t speak. “After a day or two of getting used to it, conversation flowed very naturally,” said Michael Costigan, a “Stoker” producer. “Everybody spoke the same cinematic language, everybody felt very clear, in part because Park is very precise in his choices.”
For his part Mr. Park played down any distinctions between working at home and in America. “I made ‘Stoker’ much in the same way as I made my films in Korea,” he said. “Of course there are the obvious differences, language, a non-Korean cast, a story set in the Western world.  But I would say there probably isn’t that much difference, and that is what the reaction has been among the people involved in the film and people who have seen it.
“What they say is, whether they like it or not, they all agree it very much looks and feels like a Park Chan-wook film.”

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February 28, 2013
Park Chan-wook’s ‘Stoker’ an exquisite gothic thriller
The Korea Herald
A spider crawls up the leg of 18-year-old India Stoker (Mia Wasikowska) early in Park Chan-wook’s English-language debut, “Stoker,’’ and she regards it passively, intrigued. 
There’s a creepy intruder in the Stokers’ handsome, isolated estate, but it’s India’s Uncle Charlie (Matthew Goode), whose existence India was unaware of until he arrived following the death of her father (Dermot Mulroney) in a mysterious car accident. Dashing, cultured and oozing melodramatic evil, he’s an homage to Joseph Cotton’s Uncle Charlie ― a murder in a suit jacket at the dinner table ― from Alfred Hitchcock’s “Shadow of a Doubt.’’ 
Park, the celebrated South Korean filmmaker of stylistic, hyper-violent revenge tales (“Oldboy,’’ “Lady Vengeance’’) has long drawn Hitchcock comparisons. In “Stoker,’’ he makes them explicit, with references not just to “Shadow of a Doubt,’’ but “Psycho’’ and maybe even “The Birds,’’ if we can agree that Hitchcock forever owns violent attacks in phone booths. 

A scene from Park Chan-wook’s “Stoker.” (20th Century Fox Korea)
The plot outlines of “Stoker’’ from the screenplay by Wentworth Miller, a TV actor and star of “Prison Break,’’ share some of the basics of the nifty “Shadow of a Doubt’’ and countless other thrillers, but it’s emphatically a Park film. In his first Hollywood movie, there isn’t even a slight dip in his brilliant, colorful compositions (with his usual cinematographer Chung-hoon Chung), his grisly flesh tearing, or his extreme warping of genre. 
But the question with Park (whose “Oldboy’’ will later this year be released as a remake by Spike Lee) is whether his genre contortions are purely for the fetishistic pleasure of seeing characters and bodies ― movies ― mangled and bloodied. “Stoker’’ certainly relies too much on its heavy Gothic atmosphere, but it does add up to something ― particularly because of Wasikowska’s deft performance. 
“Stoker’’ begins in a lush montage of rhythmic freeze frames of India, with an ominous police car in the background, ruminating in a voice-over about her nature: “Just as a flower doesn’t choose its color, we don’t choose what we are going to be.’’ The foreshadowing sets the tone for a pulpy coming of age story, where India’s transition into womanhood comes via incestuous desires and buried corpses.
With stringy black hair shrouding her face, India is a dour, intelligent introvert ― a kind of Victorian shadow of Wasikowska’s Jane Eyre. She doesn’t like to be touched, not even by her mom (Nicole Kidman), and her acute sensitivity picks up the whispers at her father’s funeral, the thundering tick of a metronome and (in one of the many heavy symbols of India’s maturation) her loud cracking of a hardboiled eggshell, rolled on a table. 
Charlie has an immediate, eerie interest in India. He stays at the house, and a lurid triangle forms between Charlie, India and her mother, Evelyn. Evelyn throws herself at Charlie, who all the while is eyeing India. Visitors like India’s aunt (Jacki Weaver) quickly disappear, some on screen and some off. 
(AP)

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February 28, 2013
'Stoker' will be shown in 38 nations
By Carla Sunwoo Korea JoongAng Daily



Homegrown director Park Chan-wook’s first Hollywood piece “Stoker” is set to be shown in some 38 nations around the world.
The movie’s distributor 21st Century Fox said that following its world premiere yesterday in Korea, the film will open in Hong Kong and Thailand.
It will open in the United States today before screening in England, the Philippines, Indonesia and Argentina among others.
Written by actor-turned-screenwriter Wentworth Miller (star of “Prison Break”) and co-produced by Ridley Scott and the late Tony Scott, “Stoker” centers around teenager India, played by Mia Wasikowska, and her volatile mother Evelyn (Nicole Kidman). 
The story unfolds as the girl’s father (Dermot Mulroney) dies in a car accident and is replaced by India’s mysterious Uncle Charlie (Matthew Goode), who moves in with India and her family.
Critics are raving about the film, and Park is being heralded as a second Hitchcock. 

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March 1, 2013
10 great directors and their English-language debutshttp://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/features/10-great-directors-their-english-language-debuts

by Matthew Thrift BFI Film Forever
As cult Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook unveils Stoker, his American debut, Matthew Thrift picks out 10 other world-class directors and their first English-language films.
Hollywood has always been made up of magpies. Ever on the lookout for the next big thing, it’s happy to reach across the globe in its attempts to lure those responsible for break-out foreign success stories into its fold. Not that it doesn’t work both ways, of course. The potential for bigger budgets, wider audiences and international recognition is often temptation enough for filmmakers to make the leap of their own accord.
Whether for political reasons, such as the mass decampment into Hollywood of European émigré filmmakers before and during the second world war, or in response to international explosions of a particular trend, these things tend to happen in waves. It may be a coincidence that 2013 sees the release of English-language debuts from three of the biggest names in Korean filmmaking, but the profile of their native cinema was raised immeasurably during the boom in Eastern horror cinema at the turn of the millennium, of which the Japanese ‘J-horror’ phenomenon led the charge.
With Kim Jee-woon’s Schwarzenegger comeback vehicle The Last Stand released last month, and a new film from The Host’s Bong Joon-ho due later this year in the form of Snowpiercer, all eyes are currently on what is perhaps the most eagerly anticipated of the three: Oldboy director Park Chan-wook’s Stoker, out this week.
Easily the most stylistically idiosyncratic of the above filmmakers, it’ll be interesting to see how successful his purportedly Hitchcockian tale of bloodlust, violence and dread proves, working for the first time in a foreign tongue. Many a foreign auteur has preceded him, and we’ve picked 10 English-language debuts at which to have a closer look.

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March 4, 2013
‘Stoker’ pulls in $158,800 after release in America
By Park Eun-jee Korea JoongAng Daily

Park Chan-wook’s Hollywood debut “Stoker” has grossed more than $158,800 in the United States just over three days since its limited release there. 
Due to its specialty genre, Park’s first English-language production managed to secure spots at only seven theaters, but pulled in an impressive $22,686 per location, the highest revenue per theater last week.
Written by actor-turned-screenwriter Wentworth Miller (star of “Prison Break”) and co-produced by Ridley Scott and the late Tony Scott, the Gothic tale revolves around teenager India (Mia Wasikowska) and her volatile mother Evelyn (Nicole Kidman). 
The story unfolds as the girl’s father (Dermot Mulroney) dies in a car accident. His presence is replaced by the enigmatic yet charming Uncle Charlie (Matthew Goode), who moves in with India and her mother.
India intrinsically senses the insidious intentions of Uncle Charlie but finds herself unable to resist her uncle’s charms in a delicate transition to womanhood.
Since its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival this year, the film has won acclaim from critics at home and abroad.
Variety’s Guy Lodge praised “Stoker” as “a splendidly demented gumbo of Hitchcock thriller, American Gothic fairy tale and a contemporary kink all Park’s own,” while Hollywood Reporter said that “Park offers one of the most artful chillers in ages.”
Yet the Associated Press’s Jake Coyle gave a more neutral review, saying that “The melodrama doesn’t rise to Pedro Almodovar levels of sublime, but to intoxicating macabre outlandishness.”
Homegrown director Park’s latest feature is set to be shown in some 38 nations around the world. The movie’s distributor, 20th Century Fox, said that following its release last Thursday in Korea, the film will open in Hong Kong and Thailand. 
The family mystery is also slated to screen in England, the Philippines, Indonesia and Argentina among other locations.

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March 8, 2013
Leo Comes to Town to Promote 'Django'
The ChosunIlbo


Hollywood star Leonardo DiCaprio made his first visit to Korea to promote "Django Unchained," a film directed by Quentin Tarantino that will be released here on March 21. 
The plot unfolds around a black slave named Django, played by Jamie Foxx, who sets out on a journey to save his wife after she is sold by a slave trader in the late 1850s. DiCaprio takes on his first villainous role as plantation owner Calvin Candie. 
During his visit, the star was sure to play up his connections to Korea. He lived near Korea Town in Los Angeles and had many Korean friends when he was young, he said at a press conference, also professing his love for kimchi and bulgogi. 
As for Korean film, he praised Park Chan-wook's "Oldboy" to which he was introduced by Martin Scorsese.

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March 14, 2013
Shin Ha-kyun of RUNNING MAN Continues to DevelopPark Chan-wook, Kim Jee-woon Choi Dong-hoon and Jang Joon-hwan Pour Praise on Shin by Kim Hyun-min KOBIZ l Nate

Big names in Korean film have unveiled their high expectations of actor SHIN Ha-kyun’s new film project Running Man, the first Korean movie to get full funding from 20th Century Fox. Acclaimed directors PARK Chan-wook, KIM Jee-woon, JANG Joon-hwan and CHOI Dong-hoon disclosed their admiration for SHIN and his upcoming first-ever actioner after viewing the film’s promotional clip, “Director's Choice SHIN Ha-kyun,” released on March 13th.
“SHIN is an actor who keeps showing us something new. He has an attitude of an artist who always dares to have adventures and makes brave choices,” said PARK, who made a successful foray into Hollywood with Stoker. PARK worked with SHIN in Joint Security Area, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and Thirst.
“He is an extraordinary actor who possesses both the ability to portray intimacy and unfamiliarity,” said KIM, director of the Hollywood actioner The Last Stand. Cult director JANG, who directed SHIN’s major work Save the Green Planet, said, “he is an energetic actor who has a great learning ability and flexibility. I’m looking forward to watching his first action film.” “He has great acting skills. I think this movie will be the one to show SHIN’s many charms,” said director CHOI from the 2012 hit The Thieves. The film is to hit local theaters on April 4th.

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March 21, 2013
'Stoker' Moves to More Theaters
The ChosunIlbo


"Stoker," Park Chan-wook's Hollywood directorial debut, is enjoying growing popularity in the United States as the number of theaters screening the film increased to 94 as of last weekend, according to Box Office Mojo on Monday.
The movie opened in seven locations in its first week before increasing to 17 in the second week and 77 in the third. 
With steady ticket sales, the film has made a gross profit of US$647,000 so far, including $266,000 from last weekend. 
"Stoker," a psychological thriller starring Mia Wasikowska, Matthew Goode and Nicole Kidman, is based on a script written by "Prison Break" star Wentworth Miller.
It revolves around a girl who goes to live with her mother after her father dies on her 18th birthday and an uncle she never knew existed suddenly turns up.

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March 22, 2013
Considering Park Chan-wook
by Kristian Lin FWWeekly.com



The widening out of Park Chan-wook’s Stoker into Tarrant County theaters this weekend is a good time to revisit — or acquaint yourself with — the career of this unique filmmaker. He was born in Seoul in 1963, in time to come into his own during a gnarly period of his country’s history. A little historical background here: The Korean peninsula has spent large portions of its history being controlled by China and Japan, and more recently by the Soviet Union and America. Between the end of the Korean War and 1987, South Korea was ruled by a series of right-wing military dictators backed by the United States, which feared that a left-wing government would reunite with Communist North Korea. The torture and murder of a student demonstrator by state police in 1987 was the flashpoint that led to a South Korea with a truly democratic government. South Korean cinema has only been truly free since that point, and filmmakers like Park have been pushing boundaries and taboos in response to that freedom. It’s kind of like Spanish film culture during the post-Franco years.
Park did not take part in the massive student demonstrations of this time, staying in school. His inaction seems to haunt him, as a New York Times magazine profile from 2009 detailed, and it would appear to be at the root of his fascination with evil and guilt. His movies, though, aren’t studies of cowards who sit by while injustice goes on around them. Instead they’re about vengeful psychopaths whose murders are depicted not as plot points in a thriller but rather as horrible acts that are agonizing to the perpetrators as well as to the victims. His guilt comes through most clearly in “Cut,” a short film he made as part of the anthology horror film Three … Extremes. In it, a movie director (Lee Byung-hun, who’s made up to look like Park himself) comes home to find his wife and a little girl tied up and being tortured by a bit-player of an actor (Lim Won-hee) whom the director has passed over for a role. His film is squalid and unsatisfying on its own, but in the light of the rest of his filmography, it’s rather illuminating.
J.S.A.: Joint Security Area was Park’s first big hit — indeed, it was the biggest box-office success in South Korean history when it came out in 1999. While it’s a fine thriller, it’s hardly typical of his work. It’s about a soldier on the South Korean side of the DMZ who forges a tragically doomed friendship with three North Korean counterparts on the other side. A resulting murder case winds up being investigated by Sophie Jean (Lee Yeong-ae), a Swiss army officer of Korean descent — when one Korean woman asks if she’s really Swiss, Sophie obliging shows her the knife that the Swiss army is famous for. Underneath the movie’s crisp procedural trappings, you can feel the pain of a country that’s been split in half, expressed through the performances by great South Korean actors Lee Byung-hun, Shin Ha-kyun, and Song Kang-ho (who’s like the John C. Reilly of Korean cinema, a burly actor who seems capable of any sort of role in any type of material). This film is about as political as Park ever gets.
Much of his reputation is based on the so-called “vengeance trilogy,” three films that weren’t planned as a trilogy but have been lumped together by Park’s fans. The first is Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, which is a rancid mess despite its fantastic title and a great cast (including Cloud Atlas’ Bae Doo-na). Oldboy is generally considered the masterpiece of the three, and even though I don’t share that opinion, I still find it a powerful piece of work. Choi Min-sik plays a guy who is imprisoned in a hotel room for 15 years, and when he gets out, he starts killing people left and right to find the identity and motive of his jailer. This leads to a justly celebrated scene in which he first gets out of jail and, seething with vindictive thoughts, goes to a restaurant and eats a live octopus. Like Christopher Nolan’s Memento, this movie is one where the revenge quest recoils upon the revenger. Ultimately, it’s about the futility of pursuing vengeance, which makes it curious that payback-loving Quentin Tarantino enthusiastically pushed it for the Golden Palm when he was chairing the 2004 Cannes Film Festival jury. (Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 wound up winning the award.) Spike Lee is currently remaking Oldboy with Josh Brolin, Elizabeth Olsen, and Samuel L. Jackson. That film is due out later this year.
In my book, the best of the vengeance trilogy is Lady Vengeance, in which a female convict named Geum-ja (Lee Young-ae, gorgeous and unhinged) is released from a 13-year prison term after confessing to a crime she didn’t commit, that of murdering a kidnapped child. She comes out hellbent on tracking down her fellow kidnapper Baek (Choi again) who actually did the murder and forced her to take the fall. Of all the monsters in Park’s movies, the unassuming, bespectacled Baek is undoubtedly the worst one — the extent of his crimes is unveiled late in the movie through a series of videos, and I remember watching that part of the film and wondering how Park managed to film those without actually torturing all those people. Geum-ja goes about her vengeance while toting around Jenny (Kwon Yea-young), the daughter whom she had shortly before going to prison. Having been adopted by an Australian family, the girl has been living Down Under and speaks no Korean. This leads to an utterly amazing scene in which Geum-ja forces the tied-up Baek, an English teacher, to translate her final message to Jenny. Park’s visual acumen is probably at its highest pitch here, with abrupt editing contributing to the air of violence, each shot painstakingly composed, and glorious colors photographed by Park’s fellow-traveling cinematographer Chung Chung-hoon (who also lensed Stoker). When Geum-ja takes her final revenge, she walks out into a street where there’s a beautiful, soft fall of snow, and it’s either a grotesque version of redemption or a grotesque parody of it. The movie also refers to the uniquely Korean custom of giving prisoners tofu upon their release — click here for an explanation.
Park himself hasn’t said anything publicly about his own religious beliefs, but Christians make up a significant minority (about 20%) in a Buddhist country. Both Lady Vengeance and his vampire movie Thirst make heavy use of Christian concepts and symbolism. Early in Lady Vengeance, Geum-ja’s face glows like a saint’s as she ministers to her fellow prisoners. Thirst stars Song as a Catholic priest who’s turned into a vampire by a tainted blood transfusion, and though he fights his newfound bloodlust, it’s a losing battle. This film is actually based on Émile Zola’s novel Thérèse Raquin, and it actually works best as a movie about being trapped in a bad relationship. The priest winds up with a similarly infected young woman (Kim Ok-vin), and the two are locked in a cycle of hurting each other, which they can’t get out of because neither of them can die. Plenty of Catholic guilt going around in this movie. I’m surprised that Park didn’t explore Christianity in his first American film, but then again, you never know where he’ll turn to inspiration for his next project.
Park has made a few other films. I must admit that I haven’t seen his comedy I’m a Cyborg, But That’s OK, whose title alone would seem to recommend it. I wonder if Park’s consistently bleak view of human nature might keep him from a mainstream following, much as it has with Lars von Trier. Still, his visual rigor and bloody-mindedness mark him as a compelling artist. I wanted to leave you with Stoker‘s striking opening credit sequence, but since that isn’t online yet, I’ll go with the even more eye-catching opening titles of Lady Vengeance, with its pseudo-Baroque music and references to Geum-ja’s red eye shadow and her post-prison job at a bakery.