PARK CHAN-WOOK

Baroque’n’roll artistry…

Before he became one of cinema’s foremost arthouse taboo-busters, Seoul’s Park Chan-wook studied philosophy and worked as a film critic. Variably inspired by Alfred Hitchcock, Yasuzo Masumura and Mikio Naruse, he began directing with little-seen ’90s films The Moon Is… The Sun’s Dream and Trio. Greater attention beckoned via Joint Security Area (2000, out now on BD), a reflective, restrained thriller about a shooting in the DMZ.

Maybe revenge is a part of me,” says Park. In his breakthrough trilogy, Park anatomised the theme to devastating, delirious and – crucially - deeply thoughtful effect. A baroque tragedy of kidnap and cruelty, Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance (2002) laid out his ferociously stylised stall. But it was 2003’s full-throttle Oldboy and 2005’s sombre Lady Vengeance that best hammered home his provocative play on the price of payback.

Frustrated by his own treatment of Oldboy’s female lead, Park felt compelled to make more femalecentred films. Lee Young-ae was magnetic in Lady Vengeance, as was Im Soo-jung’s battery-licker in I’m A Cyborg, But That’s OK. Mia Wasikowska sharpened the comic cut of Park’s English-language debut, Stoker (2013).

Between their cruel excesses, Park’s films harbour layered, lyrical depths. Transplanting Fingersmith from Victorian Britain to ’30s Korea for The Handmaiden, he preserved Sarah Waters’ multi-angle structure. The Vengeance Trilogy invokes Jacobean tragedy; Thirst sups on Émile Zola’s 1867 novel Thérèse Raquin. In 2018, Park preserved his style and substance on telly for a sharp take on John le Carré’s The Little Drummer Girl.

Though octopuses may disagree, Park uses humour sensitively to counterpoint his more audience assaulting extremes. “I’d like to think of it as pairing wine to your food,” he says. The comedy glass overflows a little on post-Vengeance Trilogy palate-cleanser I’m A Cyborg…, but the sly wit of Oldboy, Stoker and The Handmaiden help draw out the core sense of humanity in Park’s strong, supple cinema.