‘Decision To Leave’ Director Park Chan-Wook Explains How Less Is Much More When It Comes To Creating Tension: “That’s The Purest Form Of Cinema”
12.01.2023 - 23:03
/ deadline.com
Bong Joon-ho may be the national hero for bringing home the Oscar for Parasite, but it was Park Chan-wook who first blazed the trail for Korean cinema. After two false starts, his international career began in earnest in 2000 with Berlinale hit Joint Security Area (J.S.A), a military thriller set in the no-man’s land between North and South Korea. In the years since, Director Park has been a quicksilver talent, never repeating himself and bringing savagely original twists to genres as diverse as the vampire movie (Thirst), the erotic thriller (Handmaiden) and manga (Oldboy). His latest, Decision to Leave, is no exception, a perversely modern and yet classically Hitchcockian whodunnit, in which Park Hae-il’s obsessive detective Hae-joon falls hard for his suspect (Tang Wei).
DEADLINE: What were your thoughts going into Cannes with Decision To Leave?
PARK: I guess I don’t really have a concept of such a macroscopic view of my career. I don’t think I ever had that comprehensive look back at my career. It’s always more of a case by case and day by day assignment, getting it day by day. But I do remember worrying about how this film has less violence and portrayals of sex. So I was a bit concerned about whether the audience would be disappointed by that.
DEADLINE: But it looks like you hit a nerve. Given the success of Glass Onion, people seem to have been looking to invest in those kinds of mystery stories this last year.
PARK: I do believe that that kind of story that you’ve mentioned is the joy of the oldest kind of genre film that’s been around. So many films have been made with such kind of mystery. So what’s really important is to express that in a new format, and, personally for me, how to combine that with a story
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