Anecdotes

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.

He is the first Korean director to win the Oscar for best director.

Bong served a two-year term in the military in accordance with South Korea's compulsory military service before returning to college in 1992.

President of the 'Official Competition' jury at the 78th Venice International Film Festival in 2021.