But Oldboy – and the other films in the director’s Vengeance trilogy – had more going on than that. Its bone-crunching violence and dark plot put it in the “extreme Asian” cinema bracket that was already readily exportable. Non-cinephiles probably first started becoming aware that something interesting was going on when Park’s Oldboy was released in the west in 2004. In two decades, it has become pound-for-pound the most dynamic and original film industry on the planet, a home for muscular mainstream directors such as Bong and The Handmaiden director Park Chan-wook, but also festival-circuit favourites Hong Sang-soo, Kim Ki-duk and Burning director Lee Chang-dong. If Parasite wins best picture it will be overdue recognition for the creative hothouse that is South Korean cinema.
Now, with Oscars night looming, Bong’s film is up for honours in six categories, and, along with the much-fancied 1917, is considered a frontrunner for the top prize.
Before you knew it, he was on Jimmy Fallon, then skating through awards season, catching trophy after trophy.
But his uproarious but sorrowful class comedy about the Kims, a working-class Seoul family who infiltrate a well-to-do household by masquerading as private tutors and servants, became a stealth hit with US audiences. No Korean film in history had even been nominated in the foreign language category, let alone for the biggest award of them all. W hen Parasite director Bong Joon-ho got started on a story idea based on his twentysomething experiences as a tutor to Seoul’s super rich, doubtless ending up in the Oscar race for the best picture was not on his radar.