Director's Inspiration: Bong Joon Ho

Bong Joon Ho's first English-language film is a dystopian fantasy realized with horror, humor, and magnificent visuals, and features a stellar cast including Chris Evans, Tilda Swinton, Ed Harris, and Song Kang-ho.


Actor Kim Hye-Ja, known to be the prototypical mother figure in Korea, stars in Bong Joon Ho’s psychological thriller as the titular “mother” who takes extreme measures to free her only son, imprisoned for the alleged murder of a teenage girl. Kim is brilliant in her subversive depiction of a Korean mother, going against the grain of the types of characters she’s played since the 1960s, all popular and familiar to Korean audiences. Heavily driven by the mother’s agenda, the film’s narrative constantly shifts and reroutes its direction, unfolding new elements derived from the mother’s subjective, instinctual investigation in which the line between truth and deception is neither crucial nor corroborated.

Oscar-winning director Bong Joon Ho’s third feature film, The Host, is a monster blockbuster starring Song Kang-ho as Park Gang-du, the head of a dysfunctional family.

Inspired by a true story, Memories of Murder centers around the gruesome serial killings of women in South Korea in the 1980s, investigated by Doo-man (Song), a detective who relies on instinct rather than factual objectives.

Barking Dogs Never Bite is centered around an unemployed academic and his satirical battle against barking dogs in his apartment building.