Park Chanwook

Director Park Chan-Wook is hands down the best director working in South Korea today and with Sympathy for Lady Vengeance he completes what we have belatedly come to know as the Vengeance trilogy(with Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and OldBoy).He grew up in Seoul and studied philosophy at the Sogang University where he started a cine-club called the "Film Gang" and published a number of articles on contemporary cinema.On seeing Vertigo he resolved to try to become a filmmaker.After graduation he wrote articles on film for journals and soon became an assistant director of films like Kkamdong of Yu Yeong-Jin and A Sketch of a Rainy Day of Kwak Jae-yong.His debut feature film was The Moon Is...the Sun's Dream and after 5 years he made his second film Trio but the response to these two films were quite cold.In 2000 Park directed Joint Security Area which was a great success both commercially and critically,even surpassing Kang Je-gyu's Shiri as the most-watched film ever made in South Korea.This success made it possible for him to make his next film more independently - Sympathy for Mr.Vengeance is the result of this creative freedom.After winning the Grand Prix at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival for the film Oldboy,a journalist asked "in your film,why is the vengeance repeating?".According to Park,he decided to make three consecutive films with revenge as the central theme.Often thought to be in favor of vengeance,Park has denied this,saying his films are about the utter futility of vengeance and how it wreaks havoc on the lives of everyone involved.In addition to being a film director and screenwriter,Park is also a film critic with several published editions to his name.None have been translated into English as of yet.His so-called "vengeance trilogy" consists of Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance,Oldboy and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance.I edited my profile with Thomas' Myspace Editor V4.4