What are you doing this weekend? Just the usual right? Getting groceries, paying bills, catching up with “Top Chef“… But if you’re Quentin Tarantino, and you find out that Bong Joon-ho will be appearing at the Busan International Film Festival, well you can just get on a plane and drop by. Already in the region taking home a statue earlier in the week at Macau’s Huading Awards, Tarantino popped on over to Busan afterward. He wasted no time in praising the Korean filmmaker, participating in an interview with the filmmaker at the fest.
“Of all the filmmakers out there in the last 20 years, he has something that [1970s] [Steven] Spielberg has. There is this level of entertainment and comedy in his films. [‘The Host‘ and ‘Memories of Murder‘] are both masterpieces…great in their own way,” he said, as he went on to explain what made the monster movie so special.
“It’s funny because the whole idea that a family, not just any family, but a weird, fucked up family like in ‘The Host’ would be the stars is unfathomable in the U.S., or any country. That is recreating the genre,” he enthused, following on Bong Joon-Ho’s comments that an American version of the movie would probably focus on the military, scientists or superheroes saving the day. But perhaps more fascinatingly, both directors shared what genre of the film they wouldn’t do.
“….the planet Earth couldn’t handle my serial killer movie. I would reveal my sickness far too much,” Tarantino said, while Bong Joon-ho revealed the musical was something he’d never do “because I can’t bear that embarrassing moment when an actor breaks into singing.” (That said, he did express interest in doing a prison break, castaway or WWII camp film).
So Tarantino and Bong Joon-ho are pals, which seems about right. But we gotta wonder if the “Snowpiercer” director will try and get Tarantino to grab his pal Harvey Weinstein‘s ear about the cuts that are coming to that apocalyptic thriller… [THR]