MR. VENGEANCE:
An interview with Park Chan-wook

By Alex Ballard

From the turn of the millennia, Korean director Park Chan-wook has emerged as one of the forerunners of modern Asian cinema. Delivering gripping, emotive and often harrowing stories with a classical narrative style, he utilizes highly contemporary photographic methods, as well as dynamic scores.

A philosophy student before moving into the movie industry, Park made his international breakthrough with Joint Security Area in 2000, eight years after his first film, Moon is the Sun's Dream. Following a period of extended leave after Moon - during which time it was rumored that he was in training to become the first Korean in space - he came back with Saminjo (1997) and Simpan (1999) before JSA put him firmly on the global map. However, Park garnered critical acclaim at the highest level with his Vengeance Trilogy: Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy, and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance.

With his latest film, I'm A Cyborg But That's OK, Park takes a step in a rather different direction, as he presents the story of Young-soon, a mentally ill young woman who believes she is a killer cyborg.

Penny Blood caught up with the Korean maestro to find out a little about his past, present and future.

PENNY BLOOD: How is the topic of mental illness treated in Korean society and how is it reflected in this movie?

PARK: In Korea, I don’t think there is a difference between the way mental illness is viewed, in other cultures I think it will be the same. I heard that in Japan particularly, there is some kind of underlying rumor that showing the mental institute in a mass-culture product is some sort of taboo but in Korea it is not. I think it might be the same in many other countries but there’s no particular tradition in its representation in Korea. Actually this film - although of course it is dealing with a mental institute and the people who have mental abnormality - it is not originally about the illness itself. The people and the institute, the places, they all represent something else so actually the mental illness and the institute and how Korean society sees this is not really important in this film.

PENNY BLOOD: What aspects of society do you reflect in your films?

PARK: I feel there is real trauma and torture reflected within cinema. For example in Japanese cinema, the nuclear bomb was a major trauma that was reflected in films made afterwards. In my films, I may also reflect a trauma within my society. For example, in Lady Vengeance, the story was based on an infamous Korean crime, a child was found dead in a water tank on top of a building, after being kidnapped, and everybody was determined to bring the murderer to justice, there was real anger. When they finally caught the murderer, it was a young pregnant woman and everyone was very shocked. She went into court when she was pregnant and the main question was how could a young mother commit such an act? She would have been sent to jail and had the child in prison, so what next for the child? That was in my mind when I started the film.

PENNY BLOOD: Do the stories of the characters reflect any experiences from your own life?

PARK: No, that is not the case, there's certainly no direct relationship at all; these are just stories, just movies! If you spend time looking hard enough and go to a very deep level there may be some kind of relationship, but this is true for most people.

PENNY BLOOD: What do you see as being the major differences between your three Vengeance movies?

PARK: Lady Vengeance is more like a fairy tale, Mr. Vengeance is like a report and Oldboy is more like a novel.

PENNY BLOOD: Is it true that you refused to do a Hollywood remake of Oldboy?

PARK: This is not true. If there were plans to remake Oldboy in Hollywood, I hadn’t heard anything. If it was, I wouldn't know much about it anyway, because I can't influence it; they bought the rights so they may do it themselves, I have no involvement and won't stick my nose in! If the movie is made I hope it is good, many Korean film fans find the possibility of a remake amusing, so I hope it works. I do know there is an Indian version of Oldboy [Zinda, aka Alive, directed by Sanjay Gupta] but I didn’t see it; it’s a musical version!

PENNY BLOOD: Is it true you turned down the opportunity to remake The Evil Dead?

PARK: Actually I heard from Sam Raimi; I heard from Raimi that there was going to be another remake of The Evil Dead but this fact was totally secret between the two of us, so I didn’t have any clue as to how it could go public. So if you have the chance to meet Sam Raimi, please tell him that he shouldn’t say anything about it! [Laughs]

PENNY BLOOD: Why did you turn it down?

PARk: The reason I turned down the suggestion was just because I like the film too much. It is still great and I have to leave it just as it is; I don’t think it could be remade better with a bigger budget and a lot of CGI or something. It’s just a great film as it is and that’s why I turned down the project.

PENNY BLOOD: What do you plan to do next?

PARK: I have two projects that I am looking at. The first is called Bakjwi, which is Korean for bat. It’s just a very tragic and very, very dark melodrama about a vampire who has fallen in love with a married woman. It’s not a vampire movie or a horror movie; actually I had two English titles for that project, one is The Bat and the other is Evil Live but Evil Live sounds too much like horror for me and The Bat is something like a Batman movie so I’m thinking of a new English title, at the moment it doesn’t have one. Song Kang-ho, from Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance will play the lead vampire. The second project is something that I am producing, it’s the new project by Bong Joon-ho, the director of The Host. That one is an adaptation of a French cartoon Le Transperceneige, and the title of the film will be, The Snow Piercer. [The graphic novel series, by Jacques Lob and Jean-Marc Rochette is set on a train where the survivors of a devastating global ice age have sough refuge.] It will have an international cast and it will probably be the biggest Korean production ever.

PENNY BLOOD: How far along is this project?

PARK: Shooting will start in 2010. At this time we’re working on a screen adaptation of the original material. This is being done by a very famous Korean sci-fi novelist.

PENNY BLOOD: And finally it’s been reported in the past that your break from filmmaking between your first and second movies [1992-97], was because you were undergoing cosmonaut training to become the then first Korean in space; is this true?

PARK: [laughs] It’s a lie!