I'm not sure quite why it is that Bong Joon-Ho has never achieved quite the same level of international attention as his countrymen Kim Ji-Woon and Park Chan-Wook but I am becoming increasingly convinced that Bong is the cream of the crop not only in Korea but also, quite possibly, in all of Asia. Just look at the man's filmography. He moved from dark comedy Barking Dogs Never Bite (hard to find but worth the effort), to moody crime thriller Memories of Murder, to big budget spectacle The Host. The man moves from strength to strength with disarming ease, he's never made anything close to a mis-step in his films and has proven to have a very broad range. If there's anything Bong's not good at he's been smart enough not to do it in public and for an object lesson in Bong's superiority over his flashier peers I recommend sitting down and watching The Host back to back with The Good, The Bad And The Weird for a demonstration of how one director (Bong) was able to root his huge budget excursion in real human emotion while the other (Kim) settled for a whole lot of flash.
But anyway ... Bong is back with Mother, his much anticipated return to 'small' film making before going nuts with huge budget scifi picture Snow Train, with Park Chan-Wook on board as a producer. The film tells the story of a woman comfortably past middle age struggling to prove the innocence of her mentally disabled son after he is railroaded into confessing to a crime he didn't commit. We ran a teaser a little while back that was little more than a couple shots matched with footage of Bong behind the scenes but now the first proper trailer has arrived and this is vintage stuff. Korean film of the year? Should be. Check it below the break.
Mother Trailer
I recommend sitting down and watching The Host back to back with The Good, The Bad And The Weird for a demonstration of how one director (Bong) was able to root his huge budget excursion in real human emotion while the other (Kim) settled for a whole lot of flash.
THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE WEIRD... the name sounds familiar, is that a movie that's coming out sometime soon?
Rhythm-X: ITs already been out in korea since last summer and you could watch it at a bunch of film festivals. Its also out on DVD.
Bong Joon-Ho is one of my favorite directors world wide. His movies are soo well made in every aspect! Im looking forward to this movie!
Memories Of Murder is the best serial killer movie ever made, by any country, in any language.
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and the serial killer doesn't even appear in the film!
His bit "shaking tokyo" was clearly the best in Tokyo! as well. Simple story but so well shot...guys a genius
Honestly, I dont get the hype about The Host. It was average IMHO
actually HOST is all-time biggest hit in korea (13+ million admission), compared to GBWeird's roughly 6.88 or 7.03 million (barely broke even.)
Since when has success been a mark of quality?
yeah both are great director.. but i think kim is also good in bringing out emotion.. watch the "a tale of two sisters".
I'm booked on this..
No one going to point out the similarity to Memories of Murder. Still not entirely sure, but I get the feeling the trailer avoids anything after him getting arrested for a reason? And since it's Bong, I've got a good feeling about it.
But the guy from Brotherhood (Tae Guk Gi) seems off?
pochiW, I believe your comment was directed at me. You're right, the Korean audience ate up The Host. I was directing that comment toward Todd's original post when he was wondering why Bong hasn't attracted the same amount of praise or attention as Kim or Park Chan-Wook. Probably could have phrased it differently.
Geriki, I do think he did a good job of eliciting emotion in ATOTS, but first and foremost that was a film about scares. That doesn't keep it from earning a spot in the upper echelon of Asian horror films, but it's rooted much more in the horror and the mystery than the characters' feelings. Even Kim's Quiet family, while it centers around a family that could be the focus of some good melodrama, focuses instead on the absurdity of the situations they find themselves in. Don't get me wrong, I love both films I've just described; I just think if Bong was making the same movies, he'd do it very differently.
My comments about Bong were geared more to the international market, where he seems to come in a distant third to Park and Kim, which confuses me as he's more consistent than either of those two.
As for GBW, I think the film's hugely entertaining, don't get me wrong there, but Kim really surprised me by making a film that is little more than action set pieces strung together by a loose plot where his previous films had all built from the characters out. The Host, by contrast, builds everything around the family and their situation and, as such, has a kind of emotional resonance to it that GBW lacks and that will make it a much more enduring film, I think.
The Host is a great film, i don't think that's even up to debate. If you couldn't have fun with that movie i can't begin to think which kind of movies are suppose to be "fun" then.
I can tell you one film that it wasn't fun: Good bad and weird. Hey, i love A Bittersweet Life, it's one of my all time favorite films, but GBW manages to get boring very fast. It has some moments, but the action scenes just go on and on. Not just that but the characters were written in napkins, here's a golden rule in action movies: characters should make the action look cool and interesting, not the other way around. Even in something like Ong Bak at least you are aware that Tony really wants that budha head. In GBW the 3 main characters have little or any back story, and after seeing the same guy killing dozens of guys without scratch, things just get boring pretty quick.
chevalier, your problems with GBW could be transferred to sergio leone's characters (sometimes) as well and I don't mind rewatching leone's westerns either. I want don't wanna defend GBW as being a masterpiece but it's a worthwhile fun spectacle movie that reminded me of how shallow entertainment should be done without offending the viewer constantly (see today's hollywood movies). the host aint spectacle and it aint shallow entertainment, it's aims at something totally different and just happens to have a big-ass monster in it that draw in the masses. it was a clever pairing that made it more successful than it would have ever been if they only advertised the "family in peril" angle of the movie. I don't understand how ppl compare apples to oranges and then judge based on their taste: it's supposed to be different.
I certainly got the kick out of gbw in a "that's how you should do blockbuster hollywood without any aim at all than to please the eye and pump up the heart" as opposed to "that's how you do story, characters and spectacle all in one (the host) in an improbable setting and wrap it in contemporary social commentary". gbw is all about posing, the host is NOT.
Oh, hell yes The Host was fun. I don't think anyone's arguing that. Like anton_es is saying, those directors and their films just aren't comparable. I watch their films for completely different reasons.
It's not fair to compare films, true to that. Now, with that clear, The Host is a very complete movie in every area, GBW is lacking almost everywhere and it fails in accomplishing being a mindless fun movie, because i was seriously watching my watch waiting for the damn thing to be over. Even some action sequences, some fights in closed space, were shot in a very odd way and i couldn't understand who was punching who. For well done mindless fun i could mention a lot of films that clearly surpass GBW: from other korean flicks like Attack the Gas Station to almost every movie you could think off that came from Hong Kong in the late 80s/early 90s.
Also, no point in doing a reference to Leone, not only the man knew how to handle characters, there was never a dull moment with him. Dressing people in cowboy outfits and having quick shoot outs would not make your movie a "Leone-esque" piece.