Eagerly waiting to see two new Korean movies

I am eagerly waiting to see two new south Korean movies. Joon ho bong’s ‘Mother’ and Park Chan Wook’s “Thirst”. Both of them are my favourite directors from Korea.

40 years old Joon Ho Bong has already proved his talent through his films “barking dogs never bites”, “memories of murder”, “host” and “Tokyo”. His films are critically acclaimed as well as big successes in box office. He is a product of Korean Academy of Film Arts (known as KAFA, the state film school in Korea like our FTII. I got a chance to watch his diploma film ‘incoherence’ at KAFA- the present institute director who taught him told me how talented he is even when he was a student). His film “Memories of Murder” broke all the box records when it was released. It is a perfect crime thriller with out using many mainstream cinematic jargons and one of my favourite films ever produced in Korean language. His last commercial movie “The Host” is still the highest money collecting movie in the history of Korean cinema. This film was dubbed into more than 15 languages and released all over the world including India. His latest movie “Mother” was released last month in Korea and it instantaneously became another big success. I heard that it is also a crime thriller like “Memories of Murder”.

Park Chan Wook do not require any introduction, the two time Cannes award winner is considered to be the most precious film maker of modern Korean cinema. He started his career as a film critic and has a deep understanding of world cinema. He is world renowned for his “Vengeance Trilogy” – Sympathy to Mr. Vengeance, old boy and Sympathy for Mrs. Vengeance. IMDB has voted Old boy as one of the greatest movies ever produced in the history of world cinema. His earlier film “JSA”(Joint Security Area) is one of the ground breaking political film (remember it was a commercial film) which questioned the boundaries built by the political establishments over the unbounded love of humanity. I think JSA is the first South Korean political movie released in North Korea by the Kim ll-sung regime (it may be wrong to call it a communist government as it became a father-son business).

Park’s latest movie ‘Thirst’ got special jury award in Cannes film festival of this year. It is his first horror movie and it is about a vampire. I heard that it has lot of visual potential like ‘old boy’. “Thirst” will be released in Korean theatres in this month. I am very excited to watch this movie.

Interestingly both the directors – park chan wook and Joon ho bong are members of Democratic Labor Party, a leftist political formation in Korea. They are very critical towards the US centered policies of the South Korean Government. You can trace out anti imperialist statements/references in their films.