Bong Joon-ho

Bong Joon-ho (Hangul: 봉준호; born September 14, 1969) is a South Korean film director and screenwriter. His films include South Korean hits Memories of Murder (2003), based on a true-life serial murder case, monster movie The Host (2006), and his first English-language film, science fiction adventure Snowpiercer (2013).

Korean film industry insiders have nicknamed him "Bong Tae-il," which, pronounced in Korean, sounds similar to the word "detail". Though he displays a fascination for strong subject matter, his films are filled with (often black) humor and sudden mood shifts.

Biography

Early life and career

Bong Joon-ho was born in Daegu in 1969 and decided to become a filmmaker while in middle school. His father was a designer and his grandfather was a noted author. He majored in sociology in Yonsei University in the late 1980s and was a member of the film club there. He was then a fan of Edward Yang, Hou Hsiao-hsien and Shohei Imamura. In the early 1990s, he completed a two-year program at the Korean Academy of Film Arts. While there, he made many 16mm short films. His graduation films Memory Within the Frame and Incoherence were invited to screen at the Vancouver and Hong Kong international film festivals. He also collaborated on several works with his classmates — most notably as cinematographer on highly acclaimed short 2001 Imagine, directed by his friend Jang Joon-hwan. Aside from cinematography on Hur Jae-young's short A Hat, Bong was also lighting director on an early short Sounds From Heaven and Earth by Choi Equan, and The Love of a Grape Seed.