The triumph of Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite in Cannes has re-confirmed Korean cinema as one of the strongest in the world—and one of the few that successfully merges auteur films with popular culture and the national (film) tradition.
Garage Screen’s program in collaboration with Pacific Meridian Film Festival features three films that allow the audience to understand the specificity of Korean contemporary cinema and the ways in which Korean directors interpret the codes of classical genres, including American action film, thriller, and crime story. The program includes Bong Joon-ho’s innovative instant classic Memories of Murder (2003), which brought its author international acclaim; Lee Won-tae’s The Gangster, the Cop, the Devil, already acquired for a Hollywood remake (2019), and The Age of Shadows by the master of Korean violent action film Kim Jee-woon.