Biographie

Long takes with many events happening on-screen and the camera being able to capture all of them.

As one event is happening on screen, another occurs in the background that diverts the audience's attention.

Displays strong subject matter while often filled with black humor

Socially and politically conscious films

Bold, saturated colours in his movies.

He bought his first video camera with savings from selling doughnuts at a school cafeteria. "I still remember sleeping at night hugging the Hitachi camera," Bong said. While studying sociology at Yonsei University in Seoul, he co-founded a filmmaking club named Yellow Door with students from neighboring universities, where he made his first short films. To make a living, he shot wedding videos. [N.Y. Times, Jan. 2020].

He is the 2nd Asian director to win the Oscar for best director after Ang Lee.

He has directed one film that has been nominated for the Best Picture Oscar: Parasite (2019) which also won in the category. It was the first foreign language film to win Best Picture.

Bong enrolled in Yonsei University in 1988, majoring in sociology. College campuses such as Yonsei's were then hotbeds for the South Korean democracy movement, and Bong was an active participant of student demonstrations, frequently subjected to tear gas early in his college years.

Is among an elite group of ten directors who have won Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay (Orig/Adapted) for the same film The other directors are Billy Wilder, Leo McCarey, Francis Ford Coppola, James L. Brooks, Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Peter Jackson and Sean Baker.

It's fun for me to bury my political and social comments here and there in a film.

In today's capitalistic society there are ranks and castes that are invisible to the eye. We keep them disguised and out of sight and superficially look down on class hierarchies as a relic of the past, but the reality is that there are class lines that cannot be crossed. I think that this film (Parasite, 2019) depicts the inevitable cracks that appear when two classes brush up against each other in today's increasingly polarized society.

My movies are based in genre, which is a universal language. Everybody speaks it.

[on Parasite (2019)] I just hope that it gives audiences a lot to think about. It is in parts funny, frightening and sad, and if it makes viewers feel like sharing a drink and talking over all the ideas they had while watching it, I'll wish for nothing more.

I was just a shy, naive 12-year-old cinema fan when I decided to become a director. I never imagined that the day I'd hold this trophy (Palme d'Or) would come. Merci.