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Bong Joon-ho

and his art of filmmaking

Bong Joon-ho

and his art of filmmaking

Contents

There is a lot of extreme emotion in Korean film. It’s because there are a lot of extremes in Korean society.

- Bong Joon-ho

BONG JOON-HO Early life Career International success Inspirations and style Filmography Awards Views on capitalism Future plans

01-18 03 07 09 12 15 16 17 18

OKJA Plot Cast Production VFX Release Reception Behind the scenes

THE HOST Plot Cast Production Political background Release

19-28 22 23 25 25 28

PARASITE 41-66 Plot 43 Cast 46 Production 47 His view 53 Themes and interpretations 54 Release 56 Home media 57 Box office 58 Critical response 60 Legacy 62 Parasite - Graphic Novel 63 Behind The Scenes 65

29-40 31 34 35 36 37 38 39

Contents

There is a lot of extreme emotion in Korean film. It’s because there are a lot of extremes in Korean society.

- Bong Joon-ho

BONG JOON-HO Early life Career International success Inspirations and style Filmography Awards Views on capitalism Future plans

01-18 03 07 09 12 15 16 17 18

OKJA Plot Cast Production VFX Release Reception Behind the scenes

THE HOST Plot Cast Production Political background Release

19-28 22 23 25 25 28

29-40 31 34 35 36 37 38 39

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

BONG JOON-HO 봉준호

Bong Joon-ho

Bong Joon-ho, born September 14, 1969) is a South Korean filmmaker. His films feature social themes, genre-mixing, black humour, and sudden tone shifts. In 2017, Metacritic ranked Bong 13th on its list of the 25 best film directors of the 21st century. He first became known to audiences and achieved a cult following with his directorial debut film, the black comedy Barking Dogs Never Bite (2000), before achieving both critical and commercial success with his subsequent films: the crime drama Memories of Murder (2003), the monster film The Host (2006), the science fiction action film Snowpiercer (2013), and the Academy Award-winning black comedy social thriller Parasite (2019), all of which are among the highest-grossing films in South Korea, with Parasite also being the highest-grossing South Korean film in history. All of Bong’s films have been South Korean productions, although both Snowpiercer and Okja (2017) are mostly in the English language. Two of his films have screened in competition at the Cannes Film Festival— Okja in 2017 and Parasite in 2019; the latter earned the Palme d’Or, which was a first for a South Korean film. Parasite also became the first South Korean film to receive Academy

Award nominations, with Bong winning Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay, making Parasite the first film not in English to win Best Picture.

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

BONG JOON-HO 봉준호

Bong Joon-ho

Award nominations, with Bong winning Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay, making Parasite the first film not in English to win Best Picture.

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

Early life Bong Joon-ho was born in Daegu, South Korea and is the youngest of four children. His family’s house was near a U.S. military base, and some of his earliest memories are of watching American soldiers passing overhead in low-flying helicopters while the kids yelled what English they knew at them: “Tom! James! Hello, gum joo-so!” meaning “Give us some gum!” “The kids would shout any kind of name, and the American soldiers would wave their hands back,” he says. “I don’t mean to invoke the Korean War image of crying children, but those kids existed. The country was quite poor” The family was separated after the Korean War, and his maternal grandfather lived out the rest of his life above the 38th parallel in Pyongyang, North Korea. His mother’s sister lived up there, too. The siblings didn’t see each other again for 56 years, until they were reunited during one of the televised events in 2006 that brought together divided families. “Fifty-six years,” he says. “Totally fucking crazy.”

His father, Bong Sang-gyun, was a firstgeneration graphic designer, industrial designer, and professor of art at Yeungnam University and the head of the art department at the National Film Institute; his mother, Park So-young, was a full-time housewife. His father retired from Seoul Institute of Technology as a professor of design in 2007 and died in 2017. Bong’s maternal grandfather, Park Taewon, was an esteemed author during the Japanese colonial period, best known for his work A Day in the Life of Kubo the Novelist and his defection to North Korea in 1950. His older brother, Bong Joon-soo, is an English professor at the Seoul National University; his older sister, Bong Ji-hee, teaches fashion styling at Anyang University. Currently, Bong’s son, Bong Hyo-min, is also a film director He wanted to be a film director ever since he was fourteen-years-old and was able to see his father always drawing when he was young. Naturally, Bong imitated his father and had the opportunity to practice comic and storyboarding since the age of five, including drawing and arranging cartoon shots.

Bong Joon-ho

While he was in elementary school, the family relocated to Seoul, taking up residence in Jamsil-dong by the Han River. Bong went to college to study sociology at Yonsei University in Seoul’s Sinchon neighbourhood in 1988, which was a time of political upheaval. “Every week, there was a demonstration in the university,” he says. Just the year before, South Korea had hit a tipping point in its ongoing fight for democracy. News broke that the police had tortured a student to

death, galvanizing nationwide mass protests that forced democratic elections. College campuses were regular battlegrounds where students demonstrated for the expansion of democratic rights, labour unions, and reunification with North Korea. By the time Bong graduated from college in 1995, South Korea was experiencing its first spasms of democracy.

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

Bong Joon-ho

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

“We hated going to class,” he recalls. “Every day was the same: protest during the day, drink at night. Except for a few people, we didn’t have much faith in the professors at the time. So, we formed study groups of our own covering politics, aesthetics, history. We’d drink until late at night, talking and debating.” He adds, “I’m not the kind of person who likes to be stuck in a group, so even while we were protesting, I would leave and go watch a movie. The lead organizers probably thought I was a bad activist.” During demonstrations, the protesters threw rocks; the riot police threw rocks back and shot tear-gas canisters from cannons. Bong, along with everyone in his generation, made “humanitarian” Molotov cocktails from a mixture of paint thinner and water — they were visually explosive but less dangerous than those made with gasoline. “The other side were young kids like us who got conscripted into the military and sent out here, so we didn’t actually want to injure them,” he says. “Still, both sides were incredibly violent. It was a really dangerous time.”

Clouds of tear gas were a near-daily presence during Bong’s first two years on campus. “It was a very traumatic smell. It’s impossible to describe: nauseating, stinging, hot,” he says. “It’s strange, sometimes I smell it in my dreams. Usually dreams are images, but I sometimes have this sensation of smelling it. It’s really horrible, but I guess that’s the way it would be.”

Bong Joon-ho

Bong later co-founded a film club named “Yellow Door” with students from neighbouring universities. As a member of the club, Bong made his first films, including a stop motion short titled Looking for Paradise and 16 mm film short titled Baeksaekin (White Man). He graduated from Yonsei University in 1995. in the early 1990s, Bong completed a twoyear program at the Korean Academy of Film Arts. While there, he made many 16 mm short films. His graduation films, Incoherence and Memories in My Frame, were invited to screen at the Hong Kong International Film Festival and Vancouver International Film Festival. Bong also collaborated on several works with his classmates, which included working as cinematographer on the highly acclaimed short 2001 Imagine (1994), directed by his friend Jang Joon-hwan. Aside from cinematography, Bong was also a lighting technician on two shorts—The Love of a Grape Seed and Sounds From Heaven and Earth—in 1994. Eventually, he suffered severe hardships for more than ten years while working on film production. In his early

stages as a film director, Bong received a meagre salary of 1900 dollars per year. It was hard for him to make a living and he barely made enough to buy rice, so he had to borrow rice from his university’s alumni.

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

Bong Joon-ho

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

Career

Early directing work

After graduating, he spent the next five years contributing in various capacities to works by other directors. He received a partial screenplay credit on the anthology film Seven Reasons Why Beer is Better Than a Lover (1996); both screenplay and assistant director credits on Park Ki-yong’s debut Motel Cactus (1997); and is one of four writers (along with Jang Joon-hwan) credited for the screenplay of Phantom: The Submarine (1999).

Shortly afterwards, Bong began shooting his first feature Barking Dogs Never Bite (2000) under producer Cha Seung-jae, who had overseen the production of both Motel Cactus and Phantom: The Submarine. The film, about a low-ranking university lecturer who abducts a neighbour’s dog, was shot in the same apartment complex where Bong had lived after his marriage. At the time of its release in February 2000, it received little commercial interest but some positive critical reviews. It was invited to the competition section of Spain’s San Sebastián International Film Festival, and won awards at the Slamdance Film Festival and Hong Kong International Film Festival. Slowly building international word of mouth also helped the film financially; over two years after its local release, the film reached its financial break-even point due to sales to overseas territories. Bong’s second film, Memories of Murder (2003), a much larger project, was adapted from a stage play cantered on a real-life serial killer who terrorized a rural town in the 1980s and was never caught (although a suspect confessed to the crime in 2019).

Bong Joon-ho

Production of the film was a difficult process (the film set a local record for the number of locations it utilized). It was released in April 2003 and proved a critical and popular success. Word of mouth drove the film to sell over five million tickets (rescuing Cha Seung-jae’s production company Sidus from near-bankruptcy), and a string of local honors followed, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (for Song Kang-ho) and Best Lighting prizes at the Grand Bell Awards in 2003. Although passed over by the Cannes Film Festival and Venice Film Festival, the film eventually received its international premiere, again at the San Sebastián International Film Festival, where it picked up three awards including Best Director. The film also received an unusually strong critical reception on its release in foreign territories, such as France and the U.S. Following this, Bong took some time to contribute short films to two anthology film projects. Influenza (2004) is a 30-minute work acted out entirely in front of real CCTV cameras stationed throughout Seoul. The film, which charts a desperate man’s turn to violent crime over the space of five years, was commissioned by the Jeonju International

Film Festival, together with works by Japanese director Sogo Ishii and Hong Kongbased Yu Lik-wai. Twentidentity, meanwhile, is a 20-part anthology film made by alumni of the Korean Academy of Film Arts, on the occasion of the school’s 20th anniversary. Bong’s contribution is Sink & Rise (2003), a work set alongside the Han River.

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

Career

Early directing work

Bong Joon-ho

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

International success The Host (2006) marked a step up in scale in Bong’s career, and indeed for the Korean film industry as a whole. The big-budget ($12 million) work cantered on a fictional monster that rises up out of the Han River to wreak havoc on the people of Seoul—and on one family in particular. Featuring many of the actors who had appeared in his previous films, the film was the focus of strong audience

interest even before it started shooting, but there were many doubts raised about whether a Korean production could rise to the challenge of creating a full-fledged, believable digital monster. After initially contacting New Zealand’s Weta Digital—the company responsible for the CGI in The Lord of the Rings—scheduling conflicts led Bong to San Francisco-based The Orphanage, who took

Bong Joon-ho

on the majority of the effects work. After rushing to meet deadlines, the film received a rapturous premiere in the Directors’ Fortnight section of the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. Although local audiences were slightly more critical of The Host than attendees at Cannes, the film was nonetheless a major summer hit. With theatre owners calling for more and more prints, the film enjoyed South Korea’s widest release ever (on over a third of the nation’s 1,800 screens) and set a new box office record with 13 million tickets sold. The Host was quickly sold around the world, and US studio Universal bought the remake rights. Bong, along with Michel Gondry and French director Leos Carax, directed a segment of Tokyo! (2008), a triptych feature telling three separate tales of the city. Bong’s segment is about a man who has lived for a decade as a Hikikomori—the term used in Japan for people unable to adjust to society who do not leave their homes—and what happens when he falls in love with a pizza delivery girl. Bong’s fourth feature film Mother (2009) is the story of a doting mother who struggles to save her disabled son from a murder accusation. It premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2009 Cannes Film

Festival to much acclaim, particularly for actress Kim Hye-ja; she went on to win the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress. Mother repeated its critical success locally and in the international film festival circuit. The film appeared on many film critics’ “best-of” lists of 2010.

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

Bong Joon-ho

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

In 2015, Bong’s next film, Okja, was announced. On April 30, 2015, screenwriter Jon Ronson announced on his Twitter account that he was writing the second draft of Bong’s screenplay for the film. Filming for the project began in April 2016. It premiered at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, where it competed for the Palme d’Or and sparked controversy due to it being produced by Netflix. The film was met with boos, mixed with applause, during a press screening at the film festival, once the Netflix logo appeared on screen and again during a technical glitch; the film was projected in the incorrect aspect ratio for its first seven minutes. The festival later issued an apology to the filmmakers. However, despite the studio’s negative response, the film itself received a four-minute standing ovation following its actual premiere. The film was later released on Netflix on June 28, 2017, and received positive reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 86% based on 227 reviews, with a weighted average of 7.54/10. The site’s critical consensus reads:

Bong Joon-ho

“Okja sees Bong Joon-ho continuing to create defiantly eclectic entertainment – and still hitting more than enough of his narrative targets in the midst of a tricky tonal juggling act.” “Generally favorable reviews”. New York Times wrote: “Okja is a miracle of imagination and technique, and Okja insists, with abundant mischief and absolute sincerity, that she possesses a soul.”

Inspirations and style As a child, Bong watched Black Orpheus (1959), which made a big impact on him, on Korean television. While he was in film school, Bong watched the Qatsi trilogy (1982–2002). His main inspirations are from Guillermo del Toro—his favorite films of del Toro’s are The Devil’s Backbone (2001) and Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)—and Oshima Nagisa, describing Oshima as “one of the most controversial masters”. Bong also studied the films of Martin Scorsese and cited him as one of his major influences during his acceptance speech for

the Academy Award for Best Director when he won for Parasite (2019). His process when working with actors is to make them feel comfortable and gives them a high amount of freedom when performing, even allowing them to improvise. Bong has commented that he doesn’t like the term ‘Directing Actors’ as he feels that “acting is the actor’s job and it’s something I don’t feel like I can direct”. His visual style did not begin to gel until second feature, Memories of Murder. The most defining trademark of Bong’s films are their sudden tone shifts (sometimes within scenes) between drama, darkness, and black or slapstick humour. During a TIFF Master Class at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival, Bong claimed: “I’m never really conscious of the tone shifts or the comedy that I apply, I never think ‘oh, the tone shifts at this point or it’s funny at this point.’ I’m never conscious of it during the filmmaking or screenwriting process.” Bong also uses real filming locations or specially built sets in all his films as opposed to green screens, even to the extent of filming in Seoul’s sewers for The Host (2006); Memories of Murder (2003) set a local record for the number of locations it utilized. 12

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

Bong Joon-ho

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

Bong Joon-ho

In another life, he would have been a comicbook artist. Bong meticulously storyboards everything he shoots, and his movies look like individual frames come to life. He sketched out every scene for Parasite and Memories of Murder himself — complete with dialogue — and for films with bigger visual effects, like Okja and Snowpiercer, he worked with an artist. “It makes me less anxious,” Bong says of his process. “Without a storyboard on set in the morning, it’s like those nightmares where you’re in the middle of Manhattan just wearing your underwear. If you have a storyboard, it feels like you’re walking outside in clean, comfortable clothes.”

In 2012, Bong participated in the Sight & Sound film polls of that year. Held every ten years to select the greatest films of all time, contemporary directors were asked to select ten films of their choice. Bong stated: “These films have had the biggest impact on my own personal view of cinema.”

His choices are listed below, in alphabetical order: A City of Sadness (Taiwan, 1989) Cure (Japan, 1998) Fargo (USA, 1995) The Housemaid (South Korea, 1960) Psycho (USA, 1960) Raging Bull (USA, 1980) Touch of Evil (USA, 1958) Vengeance Is Mine (Japan, 1979) The Wages of Fear (France, 1953) Zodiac (USA, 2007)

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

Bong Joon-ho

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

Bong Joon-ho

Filmography Feature films

Short films

1997 Motel Cactus 1999 Phantom: The Submarine 2000 Barking Dogs Never Bite 2003 Memories of Murder 2005 Antarctic Journal 2006 The Host 2009 Mother 2013 Snowpiercer 2014 Sea Fog 2017 Okja 2019 Parasite

1994 Baeksaekin (White Man) Memories in My Frame Incoherence 2003 Twentidentity 2004 Digital Short Films by Three Directors 2008 Tokyo! 2011 3.11 A Sense of Home

Awards He has won almost all awards that he’s been nominated for. He has won 3 Academy Awards in 2020 for Parasite for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay. He has also won the Palme d’Or (Award for Best Film) for Parasite at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival

He also has many Asian Film awards, British Academy Film Awards, Blue Dragon Film Awards, Chunsa Film Art Awards, Director’s Cut Awards, Grand Bell Awards, Korean Association of Film Critics Awards, Korean Film Awards and several other awards under his name for best screenplay, best director and even best film.

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

Bong Joon-ho

Filmography Feature films

Short films

1994 Baeksaekin (White Man) Memories in My Frame Incoherence 2003 Twentidentity 2004 Digital Short Films by Three Directors 2008 Tokyo! 2011 3.11 A Sense of Home

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

Bong Joon-ho

Views on capitalism “Korea, on the surface, seems like a very rich and glamorous country now, with K-pop, high-speed internet and IT technology,” Bong says, “but the relative wealth between rich and poor is widening. The younger generation, in particular, feels a lot of despair.” Just as there are people living in tents, so there are homeless people sleeping rough around Seoul’s central station, he says. “People who are in society’s blind spots.”

Social division is a theme that runs through much of Bong’s work, and, despite his avowed neutrality, he tends to favour the underdogs. His 2006 film, The Host, for example, also focused on a poor but loving family running a food stall, again led by Song. They take on a mutant fish-monster accidentally created by pollution from the US military in Seoul’s Han River. In Okja, it was a down-to-earth country girl who battles a dystopian corporation to save her only friend, a strangely adorable giant mutant pig. Snowpiercer, adapted from a French graphic novel, stages a class revolt on board a train containing the entire postapocalyptic population of the world – a horizontal counterpart to Parasite’s vertical class stratification. Chris Evans leads an assault by the have-nots at the rear on the privileged passengers dwelling at the front.

Future plans For now, Bong doesn’t plan on doing another big-budget film like Snowpiercer or Okja. (He’s currently at work on a “slightly scary” Korean film inspired by a news event and an Englishlanguage production.) He prefers the size of a movie like Parasite because it allows him to achieve the specificity of his vision. “You know how when you were little, you would use a magnifying glass to gather the sunlight into one point and burn a piece of paper?” he explains by way of metaphor. “Parasite was like taking a camera lens and gathering all of my concentration and focusing it in on one spot. When the scale is really grand, a bigger budget feels like a handicap. Your energy gets scattered.” He adds, “And isn’t the smell of burning paper really nice?”

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

Bong Joon-ho

The Host (2006)

THE HOST

괴물

(Korean: lit. “Monster”) is a 2006 South Korean monster film directed by Bong Joon-ho and starring Song Kang-ho, Byun Hee-bong, Park Hae-il, Bae Doona and Go Ah-sung. The film concerns a monster kidnapping a man’s daughter, and his attempts to rescue her. According to the director, his inspiration came from a local article about a deformed fish with an S-shaped spine caught in the Han River. Following the success of the director’s work Memories of Murder, The Host was highly anticipated. It was released on a record number of screens in its home country on July 27, 2006. By the end of its run on November 8, 13 million tickets had been sold, making it (at the time) the highest-grossing South Korean film of all time. The film was released on a limited basis in the United States on March 9, 2007, and on DVD, Blu-ray, and HD DVD formats on July 24, 2007. It won several awards including Best Film at the Asian Film Awards and at the Blue Dragon Film Awards. In 2000, an American military pathologist (Scott Wilson) orders his Korean assistant to dump 200 bottles of formaldehyde down a drain leading into the Han River. Over the next several years, there are sightings of a strange

amphibious creature in the waterway, and the fish in the river die off. In 2006, a slow-witted young man named Park Gang-du (Song Kang-ho) runs a small snack bar in a park near the river with his father, Hee-bong (Byun Hee-bong). Other family members are Gang-du’s daughter, Hyun-seo (Go Ah-sung); his sister Nam-joo (Bae Doona), a national medalist archer; and his brother, Nam-il (Park Hae-il), an alcoholic college graduate and former political activist.

The Host (2006)

THE HOST

괴물

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

The Host (2006)

Plot A huge creature (voiced by Oh Dal-su) emerges from the Han River and begins attacking people. Gang-du tries to grab his daughter from the crowd and run but sees the creature snatching Hyun-seo and diving back into the river. After a mass funeral for the victims, government representatives and the American military arrive and quarantine people who had contact with the creature, including Gang-du and his family. It is announced that the creature is the host of a deadly, unknown virus.

Gang-du receives a phone call from Hyunseo. She explains that she is trapped in the sewers with the creature, but her phone stops working. Gang-du and his family escape the hospital and prepare supplies to look for Hyun-seo. Two homeless boys, Sejin and Se-joo, are attacked and swallowed by the creature. It returns to its sleeping area in the sewer and regurgitates them. Only Se-Joo is alive. Hyun-seo helps Se-Joo hide in a spot the creature cannot reach.

The Parks encounter the creature and shoot at it until they run out of ammunition. Provoked, the creature kills Hee-bong. Gangdu is captured by the Army and Nam-il and Nam-joo are separated from each other. Nam-il meets an old friend (Yim Pil-sung) for help and learns that the government has placed a bounty on his family. The friend tries to capture Nam-il, but he escapes after obtaining Hyun-seo’s location. Gang-du overhears an American scientist discussing that there is no virus; it is made up to distract people from the creature’s origin. They decide to lobotomize Gang-du to silence him.

While the creature is sleeping, Hyun-seo makes a rope from old clothes and uses it to get out of the hole. She realizes that the creature has only feigned sleep to lure her out of hiding. She and Se-joo are swallowed by the creature. Gang-du escapes by taking one of the nurses hostage. Nam-il meets a homeless man (Yoon Je-moon) who helps him. The government announces the plan to release a chemical called Agent Yellow into the river, hoping it will kill the creature. Gangdu finds the creature and sees Hyun-seo’s arm hanging out of its mouth. The creature goes to the location where Agent Yellow is released and a large crowd has formed in protest. As it attacks the crowd, Agent Yellow is released, which appears to stun it. Gang-du pulls Hyun-seo out of its mouth and sees her still clutching Se-joo; she has died protecting him. Gang-du, enraged at his daughter’s death, attacks the creature, aided by Nam-il, Namjoo, and the homeless man. They set it on fire and Gang-du impales it with a pole, finally killing it. As they mourn Hyun-seo, Gangdu revives Se-joo. Sometime later, it is seen that Gang-du has adopted Se-joo. They have a meal together, ignoring a news broadcast about the aftermath of the incident. 22

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

The Host (2006)

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

Cast Song Kang-ho as Park Gang-du, a clumsy misfit vendor in his father’s shop, who often falls asleep. He is often berated by his family members, and his laziness was caused by lack of protein as a child. Byun Hee-bong as Park Hee-bong, the father of Gang-du, Nam-il, Nam-joo, and grandfather of Hyun-Seo. He runs the shop near the Han River with Gang-du. Park Hae-il as Park Nam-il, an unemployed university graduate and former political activist. Bae Doo-na as Park Nam-joo, a national medalist archer, who attempts to use her skills on the monster. Go Ah-sung as Park Hyun-seo, the pre-teen daughter of Gang-du who is embarrassed by her family, especially her father. According to her grandfather, her birth was an “accident,” and her mother ran away afterwards. She is kidnapped by the Gwoemul, prompting the family to search for her. Oh Dal-su as the voice of the Gwoemul, a giant creature mutated by chemicals dumped into the Han River. The Gwoemul attacks any humans that come into its path. 23

The Host (2006)

Lee Jae-eung as Se-jin, the older homeless brother who attempts to steal food from the Park snack shop. Lee Dong-ho as Se-joo, the younger homeless brother who follows Se-jin and later befriends Hyun-seo. Yoon Je-moon as The homeless man, who helps Nam-il create weapons to battle the monster. Yim Pil-sung as Nam-il’s senior, “Fat Guevara,” Kim Roi-ha as Yellow 1 (in the funeral) Park No-sik as the inquiry officer Go Soo-hee as the hostage nurse David Joseph Anselmo as Donald White, a U.S. sergeant residing in South Korea with his girlfriend, who helps Gang-du fight the monster when it first emerges from the Han River. Scott Wilson as a U.S. Military doctor, who orders his Korean assistant to dump chemicals into the Han River, creating the Gwoemul. Paul Lazar as an American doctor, who speaks with Gang-du about finding his daughter, and reveals a truth. Brian Lee as a young Korean doctor, assistant to a U.S. Military doctor, who is ordered to dump chemicals into the Han River, and is later seen translating for Gang-du. 24

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

The Host (2006)

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

The Host (2006)

Production Background

Special effects

The film was the third feature-length film directed by Bong Joon-ho. Following the positive reaction to the director’s debut, Barking Dogs Never Bite, coupled with the critical acclaim and box-office success of his previous work, Memories of Murder, the film was given a generous production budget of around ₩10 billion (just over US$10 million), huge by local industry standards. Filming Some of the filming took place in the real sewers near the Han River, rather than on a set. The stars and crew were inoculated against tetanus by the medical officer. During filming, the crew had to deal with the effects of changes in weather and ambient temperature. This including the sewage water freezing in cold temperatures, so that it had to be broken up and melted; and during hot and windy periods, the water evaporated and the silt turned to dust, which blew around in the breeze and into the faces of the crew.

The director had to work around the budgetimposed restrictions, especially when it came to special effects. The creature was designed by Chin Wei-chen, the modeling was done by New Zealand-based Weta Workshop and the animatronics were by John Cox’s creature Workshop. The CGI for the film was done by The Orphanage, which also did some of the visual effects in The Day After Tomorrow. The monster was designed with some specific parameters in mind. According to the director himself the inspiration came from a local article about a deformed fish with an S-shaped spine caught in the Han River. Therefore, the director’s wishes were for it to look like an actual mutated fish-like creature, rather than have a more fantastical design. In the opening scenes of the film, two fishermen presumably encounter the creature whilst it is still small enough to fit in one of their cups; suggestive of its humble, more realistic origins. The monster also exhibits frontal limbs similar to amphibians’ legs.

This element of its design seems to have been more a choice of functionality on the designers’ part as the monster needed to be able to run and perform certain acrobatic movements during the film. For a genre film monster, the creature’s size is rather small, only about the size of a truck. Also unlike in many other monster-themed films, the creature is fully visible from early on in the film, sometimes for large stretches of time and even in broad daylight, which earned the film some critical praise. 26

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

The Host (2006)

Production Background

Special effects

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

The Host (2006)

Political background The film was in part inspired by an incident in 2000, in which a Korean mortician working for the U.S. military in Seoul reported that he was ordered to dump a large amount of formaldehyde down the drain. In addition to its environmental concerns, this caused some antagonism toward the United States. The American military stationed in South Korea is portrayed as uncaring about the effects their activities have on the locals. The chemical agent used by the American military to combat the monster in the end, named “Agent Yellow” in a thinly-veiled reference to Agent Orange, was also used to satirical effect. The director, Bong Joon-ho, commented on the issue: “It’s a stretch to simplify The Host as an anti-American film, but there is certainly a metaphor and political commentary about the U.S.” Because of its themes, which can be seen as critical of the United States, the film was lauded by North Korean authorities, a rarity for a South Korean blockbuster film.

The film features a satirical portrayal of the South Korean government as bureaucratic, inept, and essentially uncaring. Korean youth protesters are featured satirically in the film, in a mixed way, partially heroic and partially self-righteous and oblivious. According to Bong Joon-ho, the Park Nam-il character is a deliberate anachronism, a reference to South Korea’s troubled political history, which involved violent protest. “When you look in terms of this character, it’s sort of like the feeling of time going backwards. [...] You could say that he is the image of the college protester back ten years ago; it doesn’t exist in the present day.”

Release The film was released theatrically in Australia on August 17, 2006. During the first half of September 2006, it premiered in Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Hong Kong. It received a theatrical release in the United Kingdom on November 10, 2006. This was its first official release outside of film festivals, and outside Asia and Australia. Its American release was March 9, 2007. It was also released in France, Ireland, Sweden, Germany, and Spain, amongst other countries. The Host received screenings on several film festivals. In addition to its opening in Cannes, among the most prominent were the Toronto, Tokyo and New York film festivals. The film swept Korea’s Blue Dragon Awards : The Host received five awards, Go Ah-sung took Best New Actress and Byun Hee-bong was awarded as Best Supporting Actor.

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

The Host (2006)

OKJA

옥자

Okja (2017)

Okja is a 2017 action-adventure film about a girl who raises a genetically modified super pig. Directed by Bong Joon-ho and co-written by Bong and Jon Ronson, the film is a South Korean-American production and stars an ensemble cast headed by South Korean child actress Ahn Seo-hyun, South Korean actors Byun Hee-bong, Yoon Je-moon, and Choi Woo-shik, and Hollywood actors Tilda Swinton, Paul Dano, Steven Yeun, Lily Collins, Shirley Henderson, Daniel Henshall, Devon Bostick, Giancarlo Esposito, and Jake Gyllenhaal. The film competed for the Palme d’Or in the main competition section at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival. It was released on Netflix on June 28, 2017.

OKJA

옥자

Okja (2017)

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

Plot In 2007, self-styled ‘environmentalist’ Lucy Mirando becomes CEO of the Mirando Corporation, succeeding her twin sister Nancy. She announces that they have been breeding a special kind of “super pig”. The twenty-six produced specimens are sent to farmers in different locations around the world, and ten years later, one of them will be crowned the winner of a competition to breed the best pig. In 2017, a young girl named Mija lives in South Korea with her grandfather and their super pig, Okja. They are visited by Mirando spokesperson and zoologist Dr. Johnny Wilcox, who declares Okja the best super pig and announces they will take her to New York City. Mija’s grandfather presents her with a gold pig and explains to her that he saved up money to buy the solid gold item to replace Okja when she was taken away. Devastated, Mija runs away to Seoul to find Okja, where she sees her as she is being loaded onto a truck. Mija chases down the truck but it is intercepted by the Animal Liberation Front (ALF). In the resulting chaos, Mija and Okja run away but are eventually saved by the ALF, led by Jay. Jay uses another ALF member, K, as a 31

translator to tell Mija that they plan to put a recording device in Okja’s ear and let her be re-captured by the Mirando corporation to show how they mistreat their animals. Mija tells them to return her to the mountains but K tells the group that Mija agrees with their plan. They abandon her, and Okja is recaptured. To minimise the PR damage to the company, Lucy pays for Mija to come to New York to be reunited with her pig. Okja is taken to a laboratory where she is forcibly bred with another super pig and flesh is taken from her for a taste test. After the ALF sees the footage, K reveals that he lied to the rest of the group about Mija’s support of the plan. Jay beats K, and expels him from the ALF. In New York City, Mija is forced to agree to the wishes of the Mirando Corporation. Jay slips into her room and tells her that they plan to rescue Okja while on stage. A parade is put on by the Mirando Corporation. Okja, blinded and battered, does not recognize Mija and attacks her. Jay tries to hurt Okja, but Mija prevents him, calming Okja down. A video of the mistreatment of Okja is screened by

Okja (2017)

the ALF to the public, who quickly turn on the Mirando Corporation. Lucy surrenders the company to her twin sister Nancy, who proceeds to call Black Chalk, a private security firm to crack down on ALF members. Mija and the ALF attempt to escape with Okja but are overpowered by the mercenaries. Okja is recaptured and the ALF members are arrested,

except for Mija and Jay who are rescued by K. Nancy, having returned to control the company, closes the underground lab, scraps all of Lucy’s promotional marketing and starts full-time operations at their slaughterhouse. Jay and K take Mija to find Okja at the processing plant and find her being forced up a ramp leading into a slaughterhouse.

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

Okja (2017)

Mija finds Okja as she is about to be killed and shows the Mirando employee a photograph of herself with a baby Okja which prompts him to stop. Nancy arrives and Mija offers the golden pig in exchange for Okja’s life. Nancy agrees to the deal and has Jay and K arrested. As Mija and Okja are escorted away, a pair of superpigs manages to push their newborn through the fence, and Okja hides it within her mouth to take it away.

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

Okja (2017)

Back in the countryside, Mija resumes her life with her grandfather, Okja, and the new piglet. In a post-credits scene, Jay is released from prison and gets on board a bus with K and the other members of the organization. With their newest member Kim Woo-shik, a former driver for Mirando Corporation, they plan to disrupt a major meeting involving all of the Mirando shareholders.

Cast Ahn Seo-hyun as Mija, a young farmgirl who takes care of Okja. Tilda Swinton as Lucy Mirando, the eccentric powerful CEO of the Mirando Corporation looking to profit from Okja. Swinton also plays Nancy Mirando, Lucy’s twin sister, the cruel former CEO of the Mirando Corporation. Paul Dano as Jay, the leader of an animalrights activist group, the Animal Liberation Front (ALF). Jake Gyllenhaal as Johnny Wilcox, a disturbed zoologist and TV personality. Byun Hee-bong as Heebong, Mija’s grandfather. Steven Yeun as K, an animal-rights activist and ALF member, who serves as translator between Mija and the rest of the ALF. Giancarlo Esposito as Frank Dawson, an associate with the Mirando Corporation. Lily Collins as Red, an animal-rights activist and ALF member. Yoon Je-moon as Mundo Park, a Korean representative of the Mirando Corporation. Shirley Henderson as Jennifer, Lucy’s assistant.

Daniel Henshall as Blond, animal-rights activist, ALF member, and boyfriend of Silver. Devon Bostick as Silver, animal-rights activist, ALF member, and boyfriend of Blond. Choi Woo-shik as Kim Woo-shik, a young driver for the Mirando Corporation.

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

Okja (2017)

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

Okja (2017)

VFX

Production In October 2015, it was announced that director Bong Joon-ho’s next film would feature a South Korean female lead and a cast of English-speaking supporting actors, with filming set in New York. On November 10, 2015 it was picked up by Netflix and Plan B Entertainment with a budget of $50 million, with production starting in late 2016 for release in 2017. Darius Khondji joined the film as cinematographer in February 2016. Bong sought out Welsh author Jon Ronson to help with the script. Working with a rough draft of the story, Ronson helped develop the English-speaking characters. Principal photography began on April 22, 2016 in Seoul, South Korea. It moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada for more filming on 35

July 31, 2016. Director Bong Joon-ho visited a real Colorado slaughterhouse to prepare for the film’s own slaughterhouse sequence, an experience that converted Bong and producer Dooho Choi into temporary vegans. Bong has called Okja “a very shy and introverted animal. It’s a unique animal that we’ve not seen before.”

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

Okja (2017)

VFX

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

Okja (2017)

Release

Reception

Okja had its world premiere at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival on May 18, 2017. During the first few minutes of its screening at its Cannes premiere, the film was met with boos mixed with some applause twice: once when the Netflix logo appeared on the screen and again during a technical glitch which projected the film in an incorrect aspect ratio for its first seven minutes. The festival later issued an apology to its filmmakers for projecting the film incorrectly. However, despite the initially negative audience response, the film received a four-minute standing ovation at its end. The film was released on Netflix on June 28, 2017.

Several independent theatres in South Korea screened the film to much success, with earnings totalling 2.3 billion KRW ($2.1 million USD) from 300,953 tickets sold. Critical response On the film review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 87% based on 217 reviews, with a weighted average of 7.54/10. The website’s critical consensus reads, “Okja sees Bong Joonho continuing to create defiantly eclectic entertainment – and still hitting more than enough of his narrative targets in the midst of a tricky tonal juggling act.” On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 75 out of 100, based on 36 critics, indicating “generally favourable reviews”. Okja was named as one of the New York Times’s ten most influential films of the decade in November 2019. Critic A.O. Scott wrote, “Okja is a miracle of imagination and technique, and Okja insists, with abundant mischief and absolute sincerity, that she possesses a soul.”

During the screening of the film at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, the opening Netflix title card was booed by the audience, over the controversy of the streaming service’s legitimacy in cinema.

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

Okja (2017)

Release

Reception

During the screening of the film at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, the opening Netflix title card was booed by the audience, over the controversy of the streaming service’s legitimacy in cinema.

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

Behind the scenes 1. Okja is a combination of pig, manatee and dog. Bong looked to a variety of real animals for inspiration. The pig, of course, “was important, because pigs are very sophisticated and clean,” he says. Okja also shares physical attributes with the manatee, which “looks like the most kindhearted and fragile animal.” The super pig’s playfulness put Swinton in mind of her four dogs, particularly her oldest, Rosie. “I started to call her Okja,” the actress says. “She’s completely Okja.” 2. A puppeteer brought Okja to life on the set. Bong had a life-size mock-up made of Okja, which a performer would manoeuvre during shooting. “We had a ‘stuffie’ for every part of her body,” he says. “That was the only way for the post-production (special effects) work to be accurate. Mija’s always hugging and grazing Okja’s face. (The puppet) doesn’t smell too pleasant, but it looks lovely.”

3. Jake Gyllenhaal’s creepy nature host was inspired by real people. Gyllenhaal’s Johnny Wilcox, a washed-up TV zoologist, was loosely modelled after the late British TV hosts Johnny Morris and Jimmy Savile, the latter of whom police say committed hundreds of sex crimes, the majority of them against children. “There’s a sort of tradition of family entertainers who are quite bombastic, but also very often sinister,” Swinton says. “We all remember as children watching these people and (thinking), ‘There’s something a little bit glitchy about the overthe-top enthusiasm.’ “

Okja (2017)

4. Tilda Swinton’s character has hints of Ivanka Trump. As the head of the Mirando Corporation, Lucy Mirando starts an initiative to create giant pigs to remedy global hunger. The bloviating character is the manifestation of “fake ‘wokeness,’ “ Swinton says. Shooting Okja last summer, Swinton couldn’t help but see some parallels between Lucy and Ivanka Trump. “I was standing in costume, watching her (on TV) at the Republican (National) Convention in a very similar look like, ‘Oh, we’re doing the same thing,’ “ Swinton says. “She wasn’t exactly an inspiration — she was more of a nightmare realization.”

5. The toughest scene to film featured two Tildas and cigarettes. Challenging scenes to shoot included a giant chase inside an underground shopping mall and a parade where activists expose the Mirando Corp.’s animal cruelty. But the most intricate was a seemingly simple encounter between Lucy and her twin Nancy (also Swinton), when they bump their cigarettes to light one. “You’ll get the angle right and then Bong will be like, ‘Actually, you’re supposed to be Lucy, but you used Nancy’s voice,’ “ Swinton says. “And you’re like, ‘Ugh!’ “

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

Okja (2017)

Parasite (2019)

PARASITE

기생충

Parasite is a 2019 South Korean black comedy thriller film directed by Bong Joon-ho, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Han Jinwon. It stars Song Kang-ho, Lee Sun-kyun, Cho Yeo-jeong, Choi Woo-shik, Park So-dam, Jang Hye-jin, and Lee Jung-eun and follows the members of a poor family who scheme to become employed by a wealthy family by infiltrating their household and posing as unrelated, highly qualified individuals. Parasite premiered at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival on 21 May 2019, where it became the first South Korean film to win the Palme d’Or. It was then released in South Korea by CJ Entertainment on 30 May 2019. The film received nearly unanimous critical acclaim and is considered by many critics to be the best film of 2019 and one of the best of the 2010s. It is also the 42nd highest rated film on Metacritic. It grossed over $266 million worldwide on a production budget of about $11 million, becoming the highestgrossing South Korean film. Among its numerous accolades, Parasite won a leading four awards at the 92nd Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best International Feature Film, becoming the first non-English film to

win the Academy Award for Best Picture.1] It was also the first South Korean film to receive Academy Award recognition, and the first film since 1955’s Marty (and third film overall) to win both the Palme d’Or and the Academy Award for Best Picture. It also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film and the BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language, and became the first non-English film to win the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. At the 56th Grand Bell Awards, Parasite earned a leading 11 nominations with 5 awards (the most for the show) to its name.

Parasite (2019)

PARASITE

기생충

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

Plot The Kim family—father Ki-taek, mother Chung-sook, daughter Ki-jung and son Ki-woo—live in a small semi-basement apartment (banjiha), have low-paying temporary jobs as pizza box folders, and struggle to make ends meet. University student Min-hyuk, a friend of Ki-woo’s, gives the family a scholar’s rock meant to promise wealth. Leaving to study abroad, he suggests that Ki-woo take over his job as an English tutor for the daughter of the wealthy Park family, Da-hye. Ki-woo poses as a university student and is hired by the Parks, who call him “Kevin”.

The Kim family recommends one another as unrelated and highly qualified workers to take over as servants of the Parks. Ki-woo tutors and seduces Da-hye. Ki-jung poses as “Jessica”, an art therapist to the Parks’ young son, Da-song. Ki-jung frames Mr. Park’s chauffeur for having sex in the car by leaving her underwear there, and Ki-taek is hired to replace him. Finally, Chung-sook takes over as the Parks’ housekeeper after the Kims exploit the peach allergy of the long-time housekeeper, Moon-gwang, to convince Mrs. Park that she has tuberculosis. When the Parks leave on a camping trip, the Kims revel in the luxuries of the Park residence. Moon-gwang appears at the door, telling Chung-sook she has left something in the house’s basement. Through a hidden entrance to an underground bunker created by the house’s architect and previous owner, it is revealed that Moon-gwang’s husband, Geunsae, has been secretly living underneath the home for over four years, hiding from loan sharks. Chung-sook refuses Moon-gwang’s pleas to help Geun-sae remain in the bunker, but the eavesdropping Kims accidentally reveal themselves. Moon-gwang threatens to report them to the Parks.

Parasite (2019)

A severe rainstorm brings the Parks home early, and the Kims scramble to clean up the home before the Parks return, while a brawl breaks out between Moon-gwang, Geunsae, and the Kims. The Kims trap Geun-sae and a mortally wounded Moon-gwang in the bunker. Mrs. Park reveals to Chung-sook that Da-song had a seizure-inducing traumatic experience on a previous birthday, when he saw a “ghost” (Geun-sae) emerging from the basement. The Kims manage to sneak out of the Parks’ house, but not before hearing Mr.

Park’s off-handed comments about how Kitaek smells bad even though he praises KiTaek’s driving skills and experience. They find their home flooded with sewer water and are forced to shelter in a gymnasium with other displaced people. The next day, Mrs. Park hosts a house party for Da-song’s birthday with the Kim family’s help. Ki-woo enters the bunker with the scholar’s rock to face Geun-sae. Finding Moon-gwang dead, he is attacked by Geunsae, who bludgeons him with the rock and escapes, leaving Ki-woo lying in a pool of blood outside the entrance to the bunker.

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

Parasite (2019)

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

Seeking to avenge Moon-gwang, Geun-sae stabs Ki-jung with a kitchen knife in front of the horrified guests. Da-song suffers another seizure upon seeing Geun-sae, and a struggle breaks out until Chung-sook fatally impales Geun-sae with a barbecue skewer. While Kitaek tends to a severely bleeding Ki-jung, Mr. Park orders him to drive Da-song to the hospital. In the chaos, Ki-taek, upon seeing Mr. Park’s disgusted reaction to Geun-sae’s smell, takes the knife and kills Mr. Park. Kitaek then flees the scene, leaving his dying daughter on the lawn. Weeks later, Ki-woo wakes up after brain surgery. He and Chung-sook are convicted of fraud and put on probation. Ki-jung has died from her injury and Ki-taek, wanted for Mr. Park’s murder, has vanished. Geun-sae’s motive for the attack is not found. Ki-woo watches the Parks’ home, sold to a German family unaware of its history, and sees a message in Morse code from a flickering light.

Parasite (2019)

It is from Ki-taek, who escaped into the bunker via the garage. He now raids the refrigerator at night. It is also revealed that he had buried Moon-gwang in the backyard. He has been flicking the light every day, hoping Ki-woo will see it. Still living in the banjiha with his mother, Ki-woo writes a letter to Ki-taek, vowing to earn enough money to one day purchase the house and free his father.

Cast

Jang Hye-jin as Chung-sook (Bak Chungsuk), mother of the Kim family Park Myung-hoon as Oh Geun-sae (O Geunse), Moon-gwang’s husband Jung Ji-so as Park Da-hye (Bak Dahye), daughter of the Park family Jung Hyeon-jun as Park Da-song (Bak Dasong), son of the Park family Park Geun-rok as Yoon (Yun), Kim Ki-taek’s predecessor as Park Dong-ik’s chauffeur Park Seo-joon as Min-hyuk (Minhyeok), Kiwoo’s friend (cameo appearance)

Song Kang-ho as Kim Ki-taek (Mr. Kim; Gim Gitaek), father of the Kim family Lee Sun-kyun as Park Dong-ik (Nathan; Bak Dongik), father of the Park family Cho Yeo-jeong as Choi Yeon-gyo (Madame; Choe Yeongyo), mother of the Park family Choi Woo-shik as Kim Ki-woo (Kevin; Gim Giu), son of the Kim family Park So-dam as Kim Ki-jung (Jessica; Gim Gijeong), daughter of the Kim family Lee Jung-eun as Gook Moon-gwang (Guk Mungwang), the housekeeper

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

Parasite (2019)

Cast

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

Production Development

Writing

The idea for Parasite originated in 2013. While working on Snowpiercer, Bong was encouraged by a theatre actor friend to write a play. He had been a tutor for the son of a wealthy family in Seoul in his early 20s, and considered turning his experience into a stage production. The film’s title, Parasite, was selected by Bong as it served a double meaning, which he had to convince the film’s marketing group to use. Bong said “Because the story is about the poor family infiltrating and creeping into the rich house, it seems very obvious that Parasite refers to the poor family, and I think that’s why the marketing team was a little hesitant. But if you look at it the other way, you can say that rich families, they’re also parasites in terms of labour. They can’t even wash dishes, they can’t drive themselves, so they leech off the poor family’s labour. So, both are parasites.”

After completing Snowpiercer, Bong wrote a 15-page film treatment for the first half of Parasite, which his production assistant on Snowpiercer, Han Jin-won, turned into three different drafts of the screenplay. After finishing Okja, Bong returned to the project and finished the script; Han received credit as a co-writer. Bong said the film was influenced by the 1960 Korean “domestic Gothic” film The Housemaid in which a middle-class family’s stability is threatened by the arrival of a disruptive interloper in the form of household help. The incident of Christine and Léa Papin—two live-in maids who murdered their employers in 1930s France—also served as a source of inspiration to Bong. Bong also considered his own past, where he had tutored for a rich family. Bong said “I got this feeling that I was infiltrating the private lives of complete strangers. Every week I would go into their house, and I thought how fun it would be if I could get all my friends to infiltrate the house one by one.” Additionally, the element

Parasite (2019)

of Moon-gwang having an allergy to peaches was inspired by one of Bong’s university friends having this allergy, as Bong confirmed in a Reddit AMA. Another notable character element comes from Ki-woo and his inability to perform well in university examinations. Choi Woo-shik, who plays Ki-woo, stated that the character is intelligent, yet he does not have the “vigour” needed to succeed in examinations. Ki-woo himself tells Da-

hye that she needs that quality to pass examinations. Darcy Paquet, an American residing in South Korea, served as translator for the English subtitles and worked directly with Bong. Paquet rendered Jjapaguri or Chapaguri , a dish cooked by a character in the film, as ram-don, meaning ramen-udon. It is a mix of Chapagetti and Neoguri produced by Nongshim. The English version of the film shows packages labelled in English “ramyeon” and “udon” to highlight to English speakers how the name was created. Paquet believed the word ramdon did not previously exist as he found no results on Google. On one occasion, Paquet used Oxford University as a reference instead of Yonsei University, and in another, used WhatsApp as the messaging application instead of KakaoTalk. Paquet chose Oxford over Harvard University because of Bong’s affinity for the United Kingdom, and because Paquet believed using Harvard would be “too obvious a choice.” Paquet wrote, “In order for humour to work, people need to understand it immediately. With an unfamiliar word, the humour is lost.”

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

Production Development

Writing

Parasite (2019)

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

Filming Principal photography for Parasite began on 18 May 2018, and ended 124 days later on 19 September 2018. Filming took place around Seoul and in Jeonju. The director of photography for the film is Hong Kyung-pyo.

The Park’s house

We first experience the Park house as the Kims do, luxuriating in the clean, sleek lines and modern furnishings. It’s open, airy, and transparent, a private oasis away from the cramped and dingy space they live in. Eventually, the house opens up like an elaborate jewel box, with plot elements that hinge on the architecture: hiding, eavesdropping, scheming. More than a house, it becomes a map of class psychology and the resentment that simmers beneath the surface. The Park’s house was a specially constructed set. The first floor and the garden were constructed on an empty outdoor lot, while the basement and second floor were constructed on set. “We built the main floor of the house in a backlot and for the second floor it was all green screen outside,” explained editor Yang 49

Jin-mo. “When we shot toward the outside from inside, everything beyond the garden was all VFX.” Bong, as part of the scripting, had also designed the basic layout of this home. “It’s like its own universe inside this film. Each character and each team has spaces that they take over that they can infiltrate, and also secret spaces that they don’t know of.”

Parasite (2019)

A fictional architect Namgoong Hyeonja had been introduced as the home’s designer and the previous owner before the Parks, and production designer Lee Ha-jun considered the function and form of the house based on how Namgoong would have designed it. The Park’s house was designed and constructed to not only be a beautiful house, but also “a stage that served the precise needs of his camera, compositions, and characters, while embodying his film’s rich themes.” Lee said, “Since Mr Park’s house is built by an architect in the story, it wasn’t easy finding the right approach to designing the house...I’m not an architect, and I think there’s a difference in how an architect envisions a space and how a production designer does. We prioritize blocking and camera angles while architects build spaces for people to actually live in and thus design around people. So I think the approach is very different.” For example, Hajun established that Namgoong would have used the first floor’s living room to appreciate the garden, so it was built with a single wide window and only spartan seating options for this function. Some of the interior artwork in the house sets were by South Korea artist Seung-mo Park, including existing artwork of

hers and some explicitly created for the film. Further, design of the home and of its interiors were aimed to make the set amenable for filming at the 2.35:1 aspect ratio, favouring wide and deeper rooms rather than height. Lee said the sun was an important factor when building the outdoor set. “The sun’s direction was a crucial point of consideration while we were searching for outdoor lots,” explained Lee. “We had to remember the sun’s position during our desired time frame and determine the positions and sizes of the windows accordingly. In terms of practical lighting, the DP [director of photography Hong Kyung-pyo] had specific requests regarding the color. He wanted sophisticated indirect lighting and the warmth from tungsten light sources. Before building the set, the DP and I visited the lot several times to check the sun’s movement each time, and we decided on the set’s location together.”

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

The Park’s house

Parasite (2019)

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

Parasite (2019)

There was only a small portion of the house that the cast could be in. The rest of it was a water tank where all the water needed during filming was drawn from. All this is impossible to notice in the movie since everything looks so real.

The Kim’s apartment

The Kim’s semi-basement apartment and its street was also built on set, partially out of necessity for filming the flooding scenes. Lee Ha-jun visited and photographed several abandoned villages and towns in South Korea scheduled to be torn down to help inform the set design. He also created stories for the Kim’s neighbours and added details of those residents along the street to improve the authenticity of the street’s appearance. In the movie, the residence of the Kims is made to appear as though it is in a slum. However, it is not a real house. It was only built on set to be used in the movie. The same applies to the alleyway as well as the neighboring houses.

Music

Editing According to editor Yang Jin-mo, Bong Joonho chose to shoot the film without traditional coverage. To give them more editing options with limited shots, they sometimes stitched together different takes of the same shot. The principal release and editing of the film were done for release in colour. A black and white version of the film was produced prior to the world premiere in Cannes and debuted on 26 January 2020 at the International Film Festival Rotterdam and was re-screened from 29 to 31 January. It also received a limited release in some countries.

The film’s score was written by South Korean composer Jung Jae-il, who also wrote the score for Bong Joon-ho’s 2017 film Okja. Jung’s music for Parasite consists of “minimalist piano pieces, punctuated with light percussion,” which sets the film’s “tense atmosphere.” Excerpts from Handel’s opera Rodelinda and the 1964 Italian song “In ginocchio da te” by Gianni Morandi also appear in the film. The end credits song “Soju han jan” (Korean: 소주 한 잔, lit. ‘A glass of soju’; not to be confused with an unrelated song with same Korean title by Im Chang-jung) was written by Bong and is performed by Choi Woo-shik, who also played the main character Ki-woo. It is displayed in English as “Soju One Glass” [sic] in the international digital releases of the soundtrack. When the song made it to the December 2019 shortlist for the 92nd Academy Awards in the Best Original Song category, it was listed under a grammatically correct English title, “A Glass of Soju”.

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

Parasite (2019)

The Kim’s apartment

Music

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

His view Bong is as fascinated and baffled as anyone by how Parasite has taken off. “A lot of people say it’s a universal story because it’s about the gap between rich and poor, but I don’t think that’s all the answer,” he says. “I think this film has done so well because it appeals in a very cinematic way, as a film in itself. I really want to take time to look back at what that cinematic appeal was He places himself in the middle of Korea’s social ladder. “I grew up in a middle-class family. Even in terms of real estate, the house that I grew up in is in the middle – between the semi-basement home and the rich house you see in the film. I was really close 53

with friends and relatives from both classes.” Parasite was inspired by his own experience tutoring a boy from a much wealthier family – at the introduction of his then-girlfriend, who was already tutoring the boy in English. Surely after the success of his movies, Bong must be pretty well-off himself these days? “I’m not that rich!” he laughs. “I live in an apartment on the ninth floor. In terms of size, it’s probably around a quarter of the size of the house in the movie. Of course, my films did make a lot of money, but I don’t know if you could call me rich if you just look at my place in society.”

Themes interpretations

and

Parasite (2019)

The main themes of Parasite are class conflict, social inequality and wealth disparity. Film critics and Bong Joon-ho himself have considered the film as a reflection of latestage capitalism, and some have associated it with the term “Hell Joseon” , a phrase which has become popular, especially with young people, in 2015 to describe the difficulties of life in South Korea. This term came out because of the youth-unemployment due to high education and the crisis of home affordability happening in South Korea. The film also analyses the use of “connections” to get ahead, for rich and poor families alike. Critics have also considered the themes of colonialism and imperialism. According to Ju-Hyun Park, the film plays out within “the capitalist economic order inaugurated and upheld in Korea by colonial occupation,” and the use of English language in the film denotes prestige within that economic system. The Park family’s son, Da-song, is obsessed with “Indians” and owns Native American-themed toys and inauthentic replicas. Bong has noted that “the Native Americans have a very complicated and long, deep history. But in this family, that story is reduced to a young boy’s

hobby and decoration... That’s what happens in our current time: The context and meaning behind these actual things only exists as a surface-level thing.” Bong has referred to Parasite as an upstairs/ downstairs or “stairway movie”, in which staircases are used as a motif to represent the positions of the Kim and Park families as well as those of Moon-gwang. The semibasement apartment that the Kims live in are 54

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

Themes interpretations

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Parasite (2019)

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

common for poorer Seoul residents due to their low rent prices, despite having several issues such as mould and increased risk of disease. Monsoon floods such as the one depicted in the film commonly damage these types of residences the most. According to Bong, the ending implies that Kiwoo will not be able to earn the funds needed to buy the house as it shows Ki-woo while still in the basement; he described this shot as a “sure-fire kill” , referring to a coup de grace to ensure death. The ending song, translating to “546 years”, refers to Ki-woo working to make money to get the house. Its title is an allegory that is a calculation made by Bong that it will take approximately 546 years for Ki-woo to finally earn the amount of money to purchase the house; Choi Woo-shik stated that “I’m pretty sure Ki-woo is one of those bright kids. He’ll come up with some idea, and he would just go into the German family’s house, and I think he will rescue his father.” According to many interpretations, this dream subscribes to a bootstrapping mentality and is unlikely to be achieved; furthermore, “it does not address the fundamental problem at hand.

Even in this fantasy scenario, Ki-taek would still be contained in the house by a legal system that would seek his prosecution and imprisonment. The forces that created and upheld the Kim family’s separation would not be undone, merely adapted to.”

Parasite (2019)

Release Neon acquired the North American rights to the film at the 2018 American Film Market. The film’s rights were also pre-sold to German-speaking territories (Koch Films), French-speaking territories (The Jokers) and Japan (Bitters End). The film had its world premiere at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival on 21 May. It was released in South Korea on 30 May 2019. It was released in Australia and New Zealand by Madman Films on 27 June 2019 (becoming both the highest-ever-grossing Korean film in the region and the distributor’s highestever-grossing non-English-language film in Australia), Russia on 4 July 2019, and in the United States and Canada on 11 October 2019. The film was originally scheduled to be screened as a closing film at FIRST International Film Festival Xining in China on 28 July 2019, but on 27 July, the film festival organizers announced that the screening was cancelled for “technical reasons.” It was licensed for the United Kingdom and Ireland by Curzon Artificial Eye at Cannes, and had preview screenings in cinemas nationwide with an interview with Bong Joon-ho shared

live by satellite on 3 February 2020, followed by the film’s general release on 7 February. Neon expanded the number of North American theatres showing the film from 1,060 to 2,001 starting the weekend of 14 February 2020, following the film’s recognition at the Academy Awards, despite the film having already been released on home video in the region. A special IMAX remaster was shown at limited North American theatres during the week of 21 February 2020.

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

Parasite (2019)

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

Home media On 28 January 2020, Parasite was released on Blu-ray Disc in Region A and DVD in Region 1 by Neon, with distribution by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment. On 13 February 2020, it was announced that the film will be released on home media by The Criterion Collection. On July 15, 2020, The Criterion Collection announced the release date of October 27, 2020, featuring the long awaited black and white version. 24 February 2020, the subscription-based streaming service Hulu announced that it had secured exclusive rights to stream the film in the United States, starting on 8 April 2020. Additionally, Amazon Prime Video began streaming the film outside of the United States on 28 March 2020. Black-and-White Edition A special monochrome version of the film, Parasite: Black-and-White Edition, has its world premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam in January 2020 and was released in cinemas in some cities in the United States beginning the same month.

It was be released on July 24, 2020 in the United Kingdom and Ireland by Curzon Artificial Eye in cinemas and on demand simultaneously. On October 27, 2020 in the United States and Canada by the Criterion Collection on DVD and Blu-ray Disc, as part of their special edition rerelease. The black and white transfer of the film was overseen by director Bong Joon-ho and cinematographer Hong Gyeong-pyo.

Parasite (2019)

Box office Parasite grossed $53.48 million in the United States and Canada, and $213.5 million in other territories (including $71.19 million from South Korea), for a worldwide total of $266.9 million. It set a new record for Bong, becoming the first of his films to gross over $100 million worldwide. Deadline Hollywood calculated the net profit of the film to be $46.2 million, when factoring together all expenses and revenues. In the film’s United States opening weekend, the film grossed $376,264 from three theatres. Its per-venue average of $125,421 was the best since La La Land’s in 2016, and the best ever for an international film. It expanded to 33 theatres in its second weekend, making $1.24 million, and then made $1.8 million from 129 theatres in its third. The film made $2.5 million in its fourth weekend and $2.6 million in its fifth. The film’s initial theatre count peaked in its sixth weekend at 620, when it made $1.9 million. It continued to hold well in the following weekends, making $1.3 million and $1 million. In its tenth week of release the film crossed the $20 million mark (rare for an international film), making $632,500 from

306 theatres. During the weekend of the Oscars, the film made $1.5 million from 1,060 theatres for a running total of $35.5 million. After Neon’s doubling of theatre showings in the week following the Academy Awards, the film made $5.5 million in North American revenue, making it one of the biggest Best Picture bumps since Slumdog Millionaire in 2009 and the biggest in ten years.

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

Parasite (2019)

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

In its native South Korea, Parasite grossed US$20.7 million on its opening weekend, and would close its box office run with US$72.2 million and more than 10 million admissions, roughly one-fifth of the country’s population and ranking among the year’s top five films. On 5 February, Parasite became the first Korean film in nearly 15 years that surpassed one million moviegoers in Japan. In the UK, it broke the record for the opening weekend of a non-English-language film, making £1.4 million ($1.8 million) including previews over its debut weekend, from 135 screens, and in Australia it took in over $1.9 million. In the weekend following its Oscars wins, the film made $12.8 million from 43 countries, bringing its international total to $161 million, and its global running gross over the $200 million mark. Following its Academy Awards success, Parasite received significant rescreening for both domestic and international audiences, generating significant further revenue. The Associated Press reported the biggest “Oscar effect” since 2001 after Gladiator won the Oscar for Best Picture. Parasite’s box office revenue increased by more than 230% compared to the prior week, grossing $2.15 59

Parasite (2019)

million in a single day. It also ranked No. 1 in Japan, the first Korean film to do so in 15 years. The Motion Picture Distributors Association of Australia announced that $749K worth of cinema tickets were sold in a single weekend, with the film re-entering the top 10 at the local box office more than six months after it debuted in Australian cinemas. Parasite also surged back to fourth place in South Korea’s box office by attracting more than 80,000 viewers.

Critical response Rotten Tomatoes reported that 99% of 441 sampled critics gave the film positive reviews, with an average rating of 9.37/10. The website’s critics consensus reads: “An urgent, brilliantly layered look at timely social themes, Parasite finds writer-director Bong Joon Ho in near-total command of his craft.” Metacritic compiled 52 reviews from critics and identified all of them as positive. Based on the reviews, it assigned a weighted average score of 96 out of 100, indicating “universal acclaim.”

Writing for The New York Times, A. O. Scott described the film as “wildly entertaining, the kind of smart, generous, aesthetically energized movie that obliterates the tired distinctions between art films and popcorn movies.” Bilge Ebiri of New York magazine wrote that Parasite is “a work that is itself in a state of constant, agitated transformation—a nerve-racking masterpiece whose spell lingers long after its haunting final image.” In his five-star review of the film, Dave Calhoun of Time Out praised the social commentary and stated that “This is a dazzling work, surprising and fully gripping from beginning to end, full of big bangs and small wonders.” Variety’s Jessica Kiang described the film as “a wild, wild ride,” writing that “Bong is back and on brilliant form, but he is unmistakably, roaringly furious, and it registers because the target is so deserving, so enormous, so 2019: Parasite is a tick fat with the bitter blood of class rage.” The A.V. Club’s A. A. Dowd awarded the film an A− grade, praising the fun and surprising twists. Joshua Rivera from GQ gave a glowing review and declared Parasite to be “Maybe 2019’s best film”, further adding, “It’s so top-to-bottom satisfying that even being completely spoiled couldn’t ruin it – but if you can come to it cold, you’ll be floored.” 60

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

Parasite (2019)

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

Parasite (2019)

Legacy Spin-off television series An HBO limited series based on the film, with Bong and Adam McKay as executive producers, is in early development. Bong has stated that the series, also titled Parasite, will explore stories “that happen in between the sequences in the film”.

Plans for tourist set

Michael Wood writing for the London Review of Books found the film to follow a theme of class consciousness to be consistent with the director’s previous film Snowpiercer stating, “The theme of social ascent, or social difference as a landscape, could hardly be more obvious, but we are beginning to get the movie’s idea: not to avoid stereotypes but to keep crashing into them”. UK film website The Shiznit gave the film an A, noting “it makes you wonder what the inflection point for such behaviour is in a culture where manners and servitude are drilled into those who can’t afford not to have them”. 61

Parasite ranked 1st in a survey conducted by IndieWire of over 300 critics, in the Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Foreign Film categories. Parasite appeared on over 240 critics’ year-end top-ten lists, including 77 who ranked the film first. On Metacritic, Parasite was rated as the best film of 2019 and ranked 7th among the films with the highest scores of the decade. As of 28 December 2019, it is the 40th highest-rated film of all time on the website.

A South Korean local government (Goyang City) plans to restore the Goyang Aqua Special Shooting Studio set, where the film Parasite was produced, and use it as a Parasite movie experience tourism facility. In addition, Goyang City has announced that it will invest $150 million in the development of the Goyang Film Culture Complex by 2026 to accommodate film experience tourism facilities, additional indoor studios, outdoor set production facilities, inter-Korean video content centres, and image research and development companies. However, criticisms have been raised about the commercialisation of areas known for poverty in South Korea as tourist destinations without concrete steps being taken to address the issues at hand.

Seoul Tourism Organization has been criticised by South Korea’s opposition party and residents of Seoul for introducing a tour route featuring filming locations and stories from the movie. The Justice Party claims that the movie became famous due to the universal recognition of global inequality.[ However, it sees the development of a tourist attraction based on the film in Seoul as amounting to the further exploitation of poverty. Residents living in Parasite’s filming locations have reportedly complained of a sense of embarrassment and discomfort due to an increase in tourists visiting their neighbourhoods and taking photos of their surroundings, making them feel like “monkeys in a zoo”. In response, the local government of Seoul has announced that government funding will prioritise the estimated 1500 low-income families living in the semi-basement type accommodations featured in the film.

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

Parasite (2019)

Plans for tourist set

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

Parasite - Graphic Novel The celebrated South Korean-director is known for extensively storyboarding his scenes before shooting and the 293-page book reprints his and co-screenwriter Han Jin-won’s screenplay alongside the hundreds of storyboards Bong drew to plan every scene in the movie. The book will also feature production stills and Bong’s illustrations and doodles for the film. Bong revealed why he believes in storyboarding before shooting his scenes in the foreword of the book. “This book no way purports that storyboarding is an essential shortcut to making good films. I actually storyboard to quell my own anxiety. I only feel safe when I have all the shots of the day storyboarded in my palm. Whenever I go to set without storyboards, I feel like I’m standing in the middle of Grand Central Terminal wearing only my underwear,” the director said.

Parasite (2019)

According to him, storyboards detail the construction of each shot as sort of a blueprint. “They can be shot exactly as drawn and serve as valuable blueprints for the crew members. The finished film never deviates far from the storyboards, and this allows the crew to trust the process. Crew members who have worked with me in the past are especially aware of this,” he added. Parasite, which examines the class divide in the Korean society through a poor family scheming its way into a rich man’s house with disastrous results, became a phenomenon on its debut at Cannes in May last year, starting a winning March that ended with multiple wins at Oscars. The film made history by becoming the first non-English and the first South Korean movie to win the Best Picture Oscar. It also won the Best International Film, Best Director for Bong and Best Original Screenplay for Bong and Han.

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

Parasite (2019)

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

Behind The Scenes Bong’s films often take years to plan (he first thought of the idea for Parasite in 2013) and require a complex wizardry of digital and practical effects. The luxe modernist house owned by the Parks in Parasite looks deceptively simple in its elegance, but it’s one of Bong’s most intricate creations yet. “On a fundamental level, if the structure of the house isn’t correct, the story doesn’t work,” he says. It was a technical puzzle: The first floor and private front yard were built on an empty outdoor lot in Jeonju, with a green screen placed on top where the second floor would eventually be digitally inserted. The other rooms of the house were built on separate soundstages. “There are nearly 480 visual-

effects shots, but we can never feel it in the movie,” he says. “They’re invisible.” When the Kims flee from the home of the Parks after hiding for hours, they find that their house has been filled with floodwater. Watching them walk through the water and trying to save whatever they can is emotional. But were the actors asked to step into muddy that was also mixed with sewage water? Not really. It was actually clean water mixed with clay masks to make it appear dirty. During an interview on the Oscars YouTube channel,

Parasite (2019)

Park So Dam, who portrays Kim Ki Jeong said: “Even if it looks really dirty, it was actually pretty clean water. And the contents, it also looks dirty, but it was actually the same product that goes into clays masks for beauty. So it was actually a really nice skincare system for the cast.” Popular Korean actors Choi Woo-shik and Song Kang-ho, who play Kim Ki-woo and Kitaek respectively, had no idea what Parasite was about when they accepted their roles in it. Their total trust in the director made them sign up for whatever he was making without asking any questions. In the movie, the first housekeeper is said to be allergic to peaches. Mr. Kim uses peaches to make her cough and appear as though she has tuberculosis. Mrs. Park is thus forced to fire here. But where did Bong get the crazy idea of peaches? Apparently, the director once went on a trip with a pal who had a peaches allergy. Bong thought it was a joke because he had never had such a thing. But when someone tossed a peach at Bong’s friend, he immediately had an allergy attack. Bong recalled the incident many years later and used the idea in the film.

Bong Joon-ho and his art of film making

Parasite (2019)

Bong Joon-ho is a South Korean filmmaker. His films feature social themes, genre-mixing, black humor, and sudden tone shifts. In 2017, Metacritic ranked Bong 13th on its list of the 25 best film directors of the 21st century.

Bong Joon-ho

and his art of filmmaking