We like to imagine there’s some kind of friendly rivalry between South Korea’s preeminent genre auteurists, Bong Joon-Ho (“The Host,” “Memories of Murder”) and Park Chan-Wook (“Old Boy,” “Sympathy For Lady Vengeance”), two of the best filmmakers in the world right now.
Turns out though, they’re much more on each other’s side. Promoting his upcoming murder-mystery “Mother” (we saw it at Cannes, it’s fantastic) when one Playlist reporter asked about the perceived rivalry between himself and Park Chan-Wook, the auteur said, via his translator, that “they’re from different generations” and in one of the few times he broke into English he said, “He’s John Ford. I’m David Fincher.”
A product of different eras or not, they’re on each other’s side. The director also revealed to us that Park Chan-Wook would be producing the younger filmmaker’s next project, called “Snow Piercer,” which is based on a post-apocalyptic graphic novel from France called, “Le Transperceneige,” about a group of people on a train without a final destination, struggling to survive after the end of the world brings on a cataclysmic ice age.
So when will “Snow Piercer” go forward? The project will be done with its pre-production by the end of the year and the filmmaker is working on the script now, “as he watches the snow fall in New York City.” He then hopes to shoot and release the picture in 2011.
The movie after “Snow Piercer” however, is going to be a horror film. “Not a monster movie like ‘The Host’ or a crime movie like ‘Mother’ but something really, really scary,” the director said.
Then of course we had to ask him about “Zodiac,” which is very reminiscent of his murder procedurals (and one of his, “Memories of Murder,” was made before David Fincher’s) and Joon-Ho said he loved it so much he had a meeting with Jake Gyllenhaal, but for what project he didn’t say (“Snow Piercers”?). In fact, when the director was in San Fransisco he wanted to visit all the locations in the movie; “Zodiac” was one of his favorite films of 2007.
Bong Joon-Ho’s fabulously dark, absurdist, twisted and sprawling “Mother” (which we highly recommend) hits theaters on March 12 via Magnolia Pictures. Watch the trailer if you haven’t already. Park Chan-Wook’s next film will be a remake of Costa-Gavras’ 2005 picture, “Le Couperet (The Ax).” — reporting by Drew Taylor
