Utter the words Vengeance Trilogy, and every film buff instantly knows what you're talking about, including self-avowed fans such as Quentin Tarantino and Spike Lee. Three movies that have helped open the world to Korean cinema — Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy, and Lady Vengeance — have undoubtedly established Park as one of the masters of gore, sexuality, violence, and dark humor. But they have also shown the world that beneath the blood and rage throbs an unlikely hope for feminism, compassion, and even humanity.
Photo from the Korean Film Council (KOFIC)
Birthday: August 23, 1963
More than the Vengeance Trilogy, Park is also the director behind some of the biggest Korean box office hits and gems, such as Joint Security Area (2000), I'm a Cyborg but That's OK (2007), Thirst (2009), the English language film Stoker (2013) with Nicole Kidman, and the BBC series Little Drummer Girl (2018).
One would think that Park, awarded and esteemed both locally and internationally, could now rest on his laurels. Instead, he directs a project almost every three years and has recently worked on the adaptation of Viet Thanh Nguyen's The Sympathizer (2024), with Robert Downey Jr. in the lead.
Instead of a rock-and-rollish persona, Park has been described as reserved, and prefers the quiet life, occasionally commuting to Seoul by bus for a meeting or two. When not feeding stray cats, one can find him taking photos around his neighborhood in Heyri, a small artist's community in Paju. Such warmth and ease is a striking departure from our image of the man who conceived of a scene where a character cuts his own tongue out with scissors (Oldboy).
When asked what his favorite film is, he happily says it's The Leopard by Italian director Luchino Visconti, mainly because "it's about getting old," he laughingly tells The New York Times. How interesting it must be to grow old like Park Chan-wook.
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