He is one of the great masters of contemporary Korean cinema. A look back at the career of the president of the Cannes Film Festival jury, who has graced the Croisette more than once: Park Chan-wook.
In 2004, Korean director Park Chan-wook made his debut at the Cannes Film Festival, in competition. The 41-year-old filmmaker presented his fifth feature film, adapted from a Japanese graphic novel and heavily inspired by... Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas: Old BoyThis strange and paranoid story of a man suddenly kidnapped and imprisoned for fifteen years was one of the major successes of the selection. While the jury, chaired by Quentin Tarantino, favored the political, it was not the only film that garnered significant attention. Fahrenheit 9 / 11 Michael Moore won the Palme d'Or, but the Korean director left with the "silver medal": the Grand Prix. The filmmaker's greatest international success, it quickly became a "cult" film. Old Boy It was also the subject of an American remake in 2013 by another Festival regular, Spike Lee.
Although Park Chan-wook was already very well-known when he arrived in Cannes in 2004, it took him a few years to establish his own style. A film buff and great admirer of Alfred Hitchcock, he worked as a film critic and assistant to successful directors who were only slightly older than him (Kwak Jae-yong, in particular), and directed two films between the ages of 29 and 34: The Moon Is… the Sun's Dream (1992) et Saminjo (1997). Two feature films that met with neither critical nor commercial success, to the point that he went so far as to disown them in his filmography. He then had to reinvent himself to make a fresh start. It was through short films that Park Chan-wook was reborn as a filmmaker. Deeply affected by the national tragedy of the Sampoong department store – a building in Seoul that accidentally collapsed, killing more than 500 people in 1995 – he directed the medium-length film in 1999 Judgementwhose story is inspired by the catastrophe that marked Korean society. Selected for international festivals, notably Clermont-Ferrand, the film puts Park Chan-wook on the map as a director to watch for all time. talent scouts of the profession. A reputation that allows him to benefit from a very comfortable budget for his new feature film, Joint Security Area (2000), a thriller that makes liberal use of flashbacks, set in the infamous demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas. A major success in South Korea, the film also received limited but noteworthy exposure at small international festivals, such as Deauville and Seattle. The name "Park Chan-wook" then began appearing in film journals. This paved the way for his next film, the neo-noir. Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002), a release in France and the United States.
The "Revenge Trilogy"
The following will follow Old Boy and the Cannes acclaim. Since then, every film by Park Chan-wook has been an event. Lady Vengeance, the final installment of a trilogy that began with Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and continued by Old Boy, won several awards at the Venice Film Festival in 2005. His next film, I am a cyborg, was awarded at the Berlinale in 2007. In 2009, the director returned to competition at Cannes, and won the Jury Prize for Thirst, this is my blood. vampire film inspired by Thérèse Raquin by Émile Zola. A tour of major international festivals that naturally attracts Hollywood's attention, whose studios have already bought the remake rights to several of his films. In 2012, he directed a film for Fox. StokerA family thriller starring Mia Wasikowska and Nicole Kidman, produced by Ridley and Tony Scott and heavily inspired by Hitchcock: a return to his cinephilia roots for his first English-language film. 2013 was definitively an American year for the Korean director, as Park Chan-wook was also producing at that time. Snowpiercer, the first film in the language of Shakespeare by his compatriot – and another great friend of the Cannes Film Festival – Bong Joon-ho.
Since then, Park Chan-wook has returned to Cannes several times. In 2016, he presented Miss, a Korean adaptation of a British novel that blends psychological thriller and eroticism. In 2017, he was a member of the jury chaired by Pedro Almodóvar (which awarded The Square by Ruben Östlund), and in 2022, he won the Best Director Award with the romantic thriller Decision To LeaveHis latest film, No other choice, adaptation of the American novel The AxeThe film, already adapted for the screen by Costa-Gavras, was presented in Venice last September. At 62, the filmmaker has mastered the delicate art of combining ambitious films with a distinctive style, achieving both box-office success and the passion of cinephiles. An ideal profile for the presidency of the Cannes Film Festival jury.
