Directing
Aug 22, 1963
Seoul, South Korea
Park Chan-wook
Directing
Biography
Park Chan-wook (Korean: 박찬욱; pronounced [pak̚tɕʰanuk̚]; born 23 August 1963) is a South Korean filmmaker and former film critic. Widely regarded as a leading figure in South Korean and 21st-century world cinema, he is known for films that blend crime, mystery, and thriller elements with other genres. His films are noted for their cinematography, framing, black humour, and often brutal subject matter. After two unsuccessful films in the 1990s, which he has since largely disowned, Park came to prominence with his acclaimed third directorial effort, Joint Security Area (2000), which became the highest-grossing film in South Korean history at the time and which Park himself prefers to be regarded as his directorial debut. Using his newfound creative freedom, he would go on to direct the films forming his unofficial The Vengeance Trilogy: Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002), a financial failure that polarised critics, followed by Oldboy (2003) and Lady Vengeance (2005), both of which received critical acclaim and were financially successful. Oldboy in particular is regarded as one of the greatest films ever made, and helped establish Park as a well-known director outside his native country. Most of Park's work following The Vengeance Trilogy was also commercially and critically successful both in South Korea and internationally, such as Thirst (2009), The Handmaiden (2016), which earned Park the BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language, and Decision to Leave (2022), which won the Best Director award at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival. He directed the English-language miniseries The Little Drummer Girl (2018) and The Sympathizer (2024). His 2025 film No Other Choice was nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film and shortlisted for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film. Description above from the Wikipedia article Park Chan-wook, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Feature Films (24)
The essay film about the German philosopher Byung-Chul Han encircles the phenomenon of fatigue in our capitalistic societies and its associated symptoms such as depression and burnout. It raises the question of how we want to live today, and what we can oppose to the pressure of an achievement-oriented digital society.
Müdigkeitsgesellschaft: Byung-Chul Han in Seoul/Berlin
Oh Tae-kyung, once an up-and-coming actor, starts a YouTube channel. He starts to produce content where he grants people's wishes, borrowing a concept from the movie “Oldboy”.
I Haven’t Done Anything
A deaf man and his girlfriend resort to desperate measures in order to fund a kidney transplant for his sister. Things go horribly wrong, and the situation spirals rapidly into a cycle of violence and revenge.
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance
Buzz Salon which is run by Cho is known for its mysterious ambience. Gi-hyuk, one of Cho's best customers, falls for Hae-joo, a hostess at Buzz. Cho uses Hae-joo to kill gangsters who harass him with money he owes them. When Gi-hyuk discovers that Hae-joo is biologically male, he feels betrayed and becomes disillusioned. He leaves her for good. Hae-joo is able to get her transgender operation in return for the assassinations and goes in search of Gi-hyuk. She returns to Gi-hyuk, as a new person, calling herself Yoo-jung. She also begins to take revenge on the thugs who abused her in the past.
Mascara
Television & Series (8)
Young-Bin is a rising star actor in South Korea. He has been best friends with Ho-Jin, Joon and Geobook since they were all children. Young-Bin belongs to a management company with Kim Eun-Gab as the CEO.
Entourage
Movie meets humanities! This talk show/variety show for movie enthusiasts features interesting discussions by a writer and two movie directors where film and humanities intertwine.
Movie Room
The documentary series were made to look back on Korea’s modern history. It tells stories of specific moments in time weaving together relevant video clips from news broadcasts, dramas, shows and other documentaries
Modern Korea
Explore director Park Chan-wook's creative mastery in films like "Oldboy" and "The Handmaiden" — diving into his expansive 33-year cinematic career.
New Old Boy : Dir. Park
Yoo Jae-suk and Jo Se-ho who enter ordinary people's everyday lives, chat with them, and give them surprise quizzes! The talk and quiz show program will spotlight these people's lives and aims to gift them a refreshing, different kind of day. Recently they're also inviting celebrities & professionals to the show.
