These are my opinions on who the best working Korean directors are. The filmmakers I’ve chosen all come from what I like to refer to as the “Korean New Wave” which began at the turn of the century, and continue to work in the industry to this day. As with all lists like this being somewhat subjective, I am confident that the directors we will be looking at have both the filmography and international acclaim to support my choices. Ad for those of you already quite familiar with Korean cinema, these picks won’t come as any sort of surprise. I have included recommendations on films to see as well. So with that said, let’s take a look at the top five best working Korean directors today.
Coming in at number five on the list is director Kim Ki-duk. His films are pure art house, his stories are often allegorical and layered with heavy symbolism that illuminate various political, religious, or social behaviors within societies. Many of Kim’s films feature minimal dialogue, with Kim favoring a more poetic style of subtle movement from his actors to convey meaning within his scenes.
Having began his career in the mid 1990’s being heralded domestically as Korea’s new “golden boy” of cinema after receiving rave reviews for his first few features, and becoming the first Korean to win ‘best film’ at one of the big three international film festivals with Samaritan Girl in 2004, as of 2020 the scales seemed to have tipped in the opposite direction. And after having some 24 completed films under his belt, director Kim could be described as Korea’s most controversial film director today.
The Bow (2005)
Kim pulls no punches within his films, and his work has had its fair share of red-lining many viewers sensitivity meters with harsh scenes of cruelty and overall tones of morbidity. Kim’s films have also been criticized as being excessively misogynistic and have sparked outrage among certain feminist groups domestically. Kim has also spent the last few years in some legal battles regarding allegations of assault, which he has disputed, but left him more or less shunned at home and often films in countries outside of Korea these days, acting not only as writer and director but more often now his own producer and editor of his films as well these days. As a fan of this director’s work, I sincerely hope the scales return to balance in the coming years for this Korean auteur.
The next director on this list is responsible for some of the most famous and most loved modern Korean movies ever made. Director Kim Ji-woon has made numerous genre masterworks that have come to define the standard of what Korean cinema is capable of and what all subsequent film releases have been compared to.
From sports, to horror, to revenge noir, to western, to spy thriller, Kim has proved himself to be one of the most adaptable directors around. To this day, A Bittersweet Life and I Saw the Devil are some of the most talked about Korean films among cinephiles, and The Foul King (2000) remains this reviewers favorite Korean comedy film. Director Kim was seen as so capable in fact that he secured his U.S. directorial debut in 2013 with The Last Stand featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger. And aside from I Saw the Devil and The Last Stand, Kim is credited as writer on 6 of his 8 features, and tending to work with the same cast of actors in each of his films, this makes him a prominent auteur in an industry drowned in overproduced and ultimately forgetful productions.
A Bittersweet Life (2005)
However, in setting such a high bar for quality films, director Kim Ji-woon has also made it difficult for fans to accept anything less than near perfection from his work, which may be partly to blame for the major disappointments that came with his most recent 2018 outing, Illang: The Wolf Brigade. With that being said, any respectable film fan in their right mind would and should make any new Kim Ji-Woon film a day 1 trip to the theaters.
As perhaps the the most grounded filmmaker, in the traditional sense, on this list, director Lee Chang-dong’s films are deep human dramas that center around characters finding their way back into an unfamiliar world after having experienced loss, or some other life altering tragedy. Heavy themes of psychological distress and trauma are present throughout nearly the entirety of his work, and a general understanding of modern Korean social and political history will greatly aid in the digestion of his films. Lee began his career as an award winning literary writer and novelist, and his craft of screenwriting is also of the highest caliber. In 2010 he took home the ‘best screenplay’ award at the Cannes Film Festival for his film Poetry.
Secret Sunshine (2007)
Even after having served a term in the office of Minister of Culture and Tourism in 2003, Lee Chang-dong is one of many artists discovered to have been privately blacklisted by the former conservative government, including others on this list, which denied him any public funding for his projects. But with an 8 year gap between his most recent projects and Lee admitting to a slow and laborious creative process, it remains uncertain as to how much the blacklist directly affected his ability to make films during that time. However, Lee does say that a certain anger had been brewing within himself and those around him, and his latest internationally acclaimed masterwork, Burning (2018), adapted from a short story by Haruki Murakami, was a step towards quelling that rage. Cinema fans will hope that Lee soon finds his peace, and that his next project is not too far beyond the horizon.
The number two director on this list, Park Chan-wook, had been seen as Korea’s most famous filmmaker, until very recently, and was largely seen as responsible for bringing Korean cinema onto the world stage with the international success of his 2003 masterpiece, Oldboy, which at the time, earned the highest ever recognition of a Korean film on the international stage by winning the Grand Prize at The Cannes Film Festival early the following year. Oldboy defined a new highly stylized genre of revenge and became the film that represented Korean cinema for years.
With his roots in philosophy and being classically inspired, Park’s style is unmistakable. His films are highly technical and precisely framed by the extraordinary cinematographer Jung Jung-hoon, who has worked on every Park film since Oldboy. Jung makes full use of his canvases, incorporating artfully composed disturbing imagery that speaks on a level beyond the stories, optimizing the visual medium of cinema to strike chords deep within on an almost psychological level. And although using a different cinematographer, Park’s 2002 film Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance remains one of the best framed and most visually interesting film I have ever seen.
The Handmaiden (2016)
Park is one of the few Korean filmmakers to direct a English language feature film, Stoker in 2013, and directed the British television drama series The Little Drummer Girl in 2018.
Many filmgoers around the world heard this name for the first time recently due to the mega successes of this director’s most recent film, Parasite (2019), which took home a breathtaking four academy awards in 2020 including best film, both domestic and international, as well as best director and original screenplay. And did I mention it won the Palm d’ Or at Cannes 2019? This makes director Bong Joon-ho the second Korean to win “Best Film” at one of the big three international film festivals, those being Cannes, Venice & Berlin.
But to those familiar with Korean film, Bong is no stranger. Voted last year in Korea by over 100 active industry experts working since the early 1960’s to those working recently as Korea’s best director of the century, 1919 to 2019, and Bong’s 2003 film Memories of Murder (2003) was voted as the best film.
At a glance, Bong’s films may seem to feature typical genre conventions ranging from police procedural to monster movie. But what makes Bong’s films so special is his unique ability to masterfully layer his dramatic stories in a heavy satire that’s capable of maintaining dramatic weight as it effortlessly plunges into and out from absurdity. This balancing act is the hallmark of a Bong production that showcases a genius level of both humor and imagination.
Parasite (2019)
Bong’s films also typically feature critical commentary on deep rooted societal issues that can range from subtle to scathing. Aside from two international productions, Snowpiercer (2013) and Okja (2017), which were obviously crafted with international audiences foremost in mind, director Bong has stated that his films often examine the “blind spots” within society, whether that be unemployment and that he sometimes wondered how his films would be interpreted abroad by those unfamiliar with Korea both past and present, and that perhaps his films could even live two different lives this way if considered successful both domestically and abroad. I believe this is true to some extent, but it also speaks to the universal language of cinema within Bong’s films that is able to speak to us all. Look forward to new English language television series’ coming soon based on his films Snowpiercer and Parasite.
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