- published: 08 Jul 2014
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Bong Joon-ho (Hangul: 봉준호; born September 14, 1969) is a South Korean film director and screenwriter.
He was born in Daegu in 1969 and decided to become a filmmaker while in middle school, perhaps influenced by an artistic family (his father was a designer and his grandfather was a noted author.) He majored in sociology in Yonsei University in the late 1980s and was a member of the film club there. He liked Edward Yang, Hou Hsiao-hsien and Imamura Shohei at the time. In the early 1990s, he completed a two-year program at the Korean Academy of Film Arts. While there, he made many 16mm short films and his graduation work Memory in the Frame and Incoherence was invited to screen at the Vancouver and Hong Kong international film festivals.
In 1994, he directed the short film White People. His first feature film Barking Dogs Never Bite, part comedy and part cruel social satire, was released to low box office numbers. His next film, 2003's Memories of Murder, based on the true story of the country's first known serial murders, garnered both commercial success and critical acclaim. However, his 2006 film, The Host, was a breakout hit both domestically — it is South Korea's highest grossing film to date — and internationally — receiving widespread critical praise after its premiere at Cannes.
Bong Joon Ho's DVD Picks
DP/30: Snowpiercer, Bong Joon-Ho
DP/30: Mother, writer/director Bong Joon-Ho
Snowpiercer Q&A; | Bong Joon-Ho
Quentin Tarantino & Bong Joon-ho Q&A; - 2013 Busan International Film Festival - Meniscus Magazine
Mother (2009) - The Telephoto Profile Shot
Mother - Opening Sequence
[Bong Joon-ho] Incoherence - Episode 1: Cockroach
APA Interview with director Bong Joon-ho
Bong Joon-ho - Berlin Film Festival - Snowpiercer