Credited as a boundary-pushing director who helped bring Korean cinema to the international forefront, Park Chan-wook is a polarizing force. His combination of dark humor, intricately woven plots, cutting themes, and unforgettable twists is instantly recognizable in films like Old Boy, Lady Vengeance, and Stoker. The director certainly seems bent on getting a rise out of audiences, and it works. He frequently enrages viewers with gratuitous violence and just-plain disturbing content. But it’s not just tasteless provocation. Jonathan Romney writes in Art Forum: “One can deplore Park’s excesses even while being spellbound by his visual panache.” Park might argue that those who criticize his use of violence are worried about what watching it, or merely imagining it, might say about their own character.
Park has a special interest in revenge, as his famous “Vengeance Trilogy” shows, though it extends to his other work too. Imprisonment, be it in a mysterious cell or a mental institution, is a recurring theme in his films. Park uses these facilities to explore the ways in which we retaliate against or cope with this confinement, whether it is self-imposed or societally-inflicted. Like his doomed characters, Park Chan-wook draws us into his trap again and again. All we can do is surrender to the gruesome story and the twisted horrors that await. But enough already, let’s rank all of his films, from humble beginnings to ambitious later projects.
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10 Saminjo
Cine-2000
The English translation of the title of this film would be either “Threesome” or “Trio,” but it’s been little-seen outside of Korea, so the name is better left as is, for clarity. Saminjo fittingly follows three characters whose storylines intertwine: a suicidal saxophonist named Ahn who resolves to make a final effort to kill himself after finding out about his wife’s affair; a violent thug named Mun who cooks up a robbery; an aspiring nun named Maria who is searching for her child. Many viewers have probably forgotten about this one, as Park Chan-wook himself seems to have tried to.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
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9 The Moon Is… the Sun’s Dream
Park Chan-wook’s directorial debut The Moon Is… the Sun’s Dream has been derided by most critics and even the director himself. It tells the fateful story of a Busan gangster named Mu-hoon (Lee Seung-chul) who makes off with his own boss’ lover (and his money). Predictably, things don’t go as planned, and only darkness awaits Mu-hoon and his accomplices. While the quality is significantly lower than Park’s other work, some elements, like the stomach-turning final twist, will be familiar to viewers. The idea of moral slide — that doing something in the name of good can often compromise your own morality, and drag others down with you; this is a theme that extends throughout Park’s filmography and emerges interestingly here.
8 Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance
CJ Entertainment
The first film in Park’s “Vengeance Trilogy,” Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance signaled a new era in the director’s career. His first film to push the limits of what amount of violence and death could be considered “acceptable,” it certainly received its share of mixed reviews, though the reactions were strong enough to earn the director a fervent international following for the rest of his career. The film follows the deaf Ryu (Song Kang-ho), who works tirelessly in a factory to help pay for his sister’s organ transplant. After he’s fired, he turns to new means to get the money he needs to save his sister’s life — he kidnaps the company president’s daughter for ransom. As things so often go in a Park film, nothing goes quite as planned in this story of revenge, and, as usual, things end up bloodier and messier than they began. It also launched iconic actress Doona Bae into stardom.
7 Stoker
Searchlight Pictures
Park’s English language debut didn’t translate all of his strengths, but it was still an extremely compelling story that hooked some top-notch American talent into the director’s filmography. India Stoker (Mia Wasikowska) is a loner high school student struggling with her beloved father’s death, when her estranged Uncle Charlie (Matthew Goode) arrives and changes her life as she knows it. Does Stoker sound heartwarming? Only if psychological horror and a family tradition of murder make you feel warm and fuzzy. It’s hard to look away as Uncle Charlie sinks his hooks into the Stoker family, starting with India’s mother, played by the ice queen of psychosis herself, Nicole Kidman. For many Americans, this was their first run-in with Park’s distinct style, his creepy combination of lush cinematography (which looks amazing with this budget) and brutal violence that ignites, every time it’s seen, a spirited debate about its necessity.
6 Thirst
Focus Features
A very loose adaptation of Therese Raquin, the classic novel about adultery by Emile Zola, Park’s Thirst rides the high of the late ’00s vampire frenzy to tell the story of Sang-Hyun (Song Kang-ho again), a Catholic priest who becomes a vampire after an experimental procedure gone wrong. As he struggles with his new urges and lusts for a woman, Park Chan-wook asks the viewer to contemplate the inevitability of sin. He told AV Club in an interview about the film: “It is not possible for a person to be completely free of sin and be squeaky clean.” This idea extends through much of Park’s other work, especially in the way he implicates the audience in the sins of his characters. No one leaves a Park Chan-wook film feeling “squeaky clean,” especially not the blood-soaked and epic Thirst.
5 Lady Vengeance
The final film in Park’s “Vengeance Trilogy,” Lady Vengeance builds on a familiar premise for the director: a prisoner is out for revenge. Lee Geum-ja (Lee Young-ae) has served 13 years for the murder of a young boy, though she is completely innocent of the crime and coerced into a confession. While she was busy playing model-prisoner, she was also concocting a plan for bloody revenge. When Geum-ja is set loose on the world, she tracks down the real killer and the bloody fireworks erupt. It’s often too disturbing to stomach, with enough controversial moments and repetitive motifs of violence (one involving an animal) that left some questioning the director’s motives. The conclusion is stunningly gruesome, though it might not carry the weight it aims to. However twisted, Lady Vengeance is an ultimately satisfying, if more one-dimensional, take on revenge that serves as a fitting conclusion to Park’s international breakout trilogy. The performances are incredible, and Park’s visual skills only increase with age.
4 I’m a Cyborg, But That’s Ok
This quirky romantic comedy from Park isn’t as dark (or bloody) as his other films. Instead, it draws power from vibrant sets and takes an empathetic approach to a love story between two people in a mental institution. This time, the confinement setting serves as a meeting place for love between Young-goon (Lim Su-jeong) a factory worker who believes she’s a cyborg and Il-sun (Rain), a schizophrenic kleptomaniac. Rather than the grim gray palette of the early 1900s psychiatric ward in The Handmaiden and the grimy makeshift prison of Old Boy, Park brings a vivid, colorful surrealism to the setting of I’m a Cyborg, And That’s Okay that allows us to find beauty in the love story between the atypical central characters.
3 Joint Security Area
Park’s first critical success was quite superficially different from the films that would later go on to characterize his voice. Joint Security Area is his most directly political film, and takes a more orthodox approach than his later work, tackling a fatal shooting that has occurred inside the boundaries of the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) which separates North and South Korea. That is not to say some of Park’s favorite themes of obsession, family, and allegiance don’t apply here. As the fragile military relationship between the two countries remains in the balance, neutral investigator Sophie Jean (Lee Young-ae of Lady Vengeance) tries to get to the bottom of the crime. Tensions rise and relationships are threatened, but Jean remains bent on finding the truth. Maybe it doesn’t have as much blood or sex as Park’s other twisted works, but there’s plenty of emotional devastation.
2 Old Boy
CJ Entertainment
Old Boy (2003), Park Chan-wook’s most well-known film, is a story of revenge in more ways than one. The centerpiece of his “Vengeance Trilogy,” it tells the story of Oh Dae-su (Choi Min-sik), a man who’s been imprisoned in a small room for 15 years without ever being told why. After he’s released, he immediately sets his sights on finding his unknown captor. Frantic and hardened by his years of isolation, Dae-su barrels through the city looking for answers with the help of his new lover. Naturally, iconic action sequences and unthinkable brutality ensue, all captured beautifully through Park’s artful lens. The third act’s shocking twist will make you wonder if revenge can truly bring any good to the person looking for it. The film was a hit and remains a classic, spawning an inferior Spike Lee 2013 remake, though at the time many saw its violence excessive and its tone too dark to engage the viewer. While the characters can feel like pawns in the theme that Park explores, it’s impossible not to grip the edge of your seat and shout at the screen when it all comes together. Then, the film’s devastating conclusion pierces the skin in a single strike — an ice-cold nail under Park’s hammer.
1 The Handmaiden
You might want to watch Park’s best film alone. First, because it’s a graphic erotic thriller; second, because you’ll want to devote your complete focus to the richly layered story. Set in the early 1900s, The Handmaiden tells the story of Sook-hee (Kim Tae-ri), a pickpocket sent to pose as a maid to con Japanese noblewoman Lady Hideko (Kim Min-hee) out of her fortune. That’s the plan, at least, until she falls for Hideko. Park transposes Sarah Waters’ The Fingersmith to a personal setting, taking exquisite care to depict Korea under Japanese occupation. Of course, it wouldn’t be a Park film without its share of controversy. The sex scenes between Sook-hee and Hideko sparked blowback in Korea, where homosexuality is somewhat taboo, and the United States, where some believed the scenes were exploitative. Even so, there’s something in The Handmaiden for everyone: There’s historical and social commentary, inventive shifts in perspective, an octopus (don’t worry, this time the octopus gets his revenge), a touching romance, and just enough violence to remind you it’s still a Park Chan-wook production.
