Korean Film Directors: Bong Joon-ho

by Jung Ji-youn

Bong Joon-ho made his feature film debut in 2000 with the film “Barking Dogs Never Bite.” Of a crowd of talented new Korean directors emerging at the time, Bong appeared to attract the least attention and achieve the least commercial success. Despite earlier strong support for his short film “Incoherence” in 1994, Bong appeared headed for failure. Three years later, however, the tables turned again for Bong. His thriller “Memories of Murder.” based on a real-life unsolved serial killer case from recent Korean history, proved a hit. Already noted from its earlier stages as having an outstanding script and being a potentially excellent genre film, “Memories of Murder” drew six million viewers to theaters in Korea alone, received awards at various film festivals, and introduced Bong’s name to countries such as the United States, France and Japan. Another three years later, Bong sent ripples through society once again with the sci-fi/monster/disaster film “The Host,” setting a Korean box office record of 13 million viewers and achieving the broadest overseas distribution for any Korean film.

Genres: Film, Nonfiction

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 5, 2009

Reviews

[anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

verbose.. but as expected of bong-tail.

[Pintobuns · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bong’s Bio and Interview sections are req reading

[figgy · Rating 3 out of 5]

interview is so rich!!

[Jacob Maurer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bong Joon-ho is officially one of my favorite directors of ALL time...
He is like the Korean equivalent of [1970's] Steven Spielberg.
His movies feel fresh and new; most like his monster movie, The host create a perfect blend of tragedy and comedy all together.
On a global scale though, movies like his most unique and recent Snowpiercer are quite unfortunately underrated.
You can't go wrong with any of his movies if you want to give them a shot!

This book, however goes more into depth with his indie film debuts and how over the years, he's movies have soared higher mostly after each one.

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mostly just glad this exists. It would be worth a read for the super in-depth Bong interview and biography alone. The rest of the book consists of a collection of essays on his work that vary in quality, but contain some valuable insight. Now I just wish there was a follow up that covered Mother and Snowpiercer.

[Abir Hasan Eka · Rating 4 out of 5]

ট্রুফোর হিচককের পর এই একটা বইয়ে ফিল্মমেকারের আনপ্রিটেনশাস জার্নি পাওয়া গেল। লাভড ইট!!!