From his earliest short films through to his Oscar-winning Parasite, the films of Bong Joon Ho defy categorisation. With unprecedented access to the filmmaker’s archive, this new book from the Academy Motion Picture Museum features storyboards, notebooks, concept art, models, props, behind-the-scenes photography and more from films across Bong's oeuvre. Interviews, essays and personal reflections by friends and colleagues give insight into the Academy Award-winning director’s inspirations and creative process.
Whether set in 1980s Korea or an imagined future time and space, they address issues that are transnational and universal: class disparity, social injustice, the environmental crisis and political and moral corruption. Bong embeds social critique into deeply humorous, unexpected and thought-provoking stories, and his protagonists are everyday people—often unlikely heroes—who confront the absurdities of modern life. Bong Joon Ho (born 1969) is an Oscar-winning director and writer whose films include Memories of Murder, The Host, Mother, Snowpiercer, Okja and Mickey 17. His 2019 film Parasite was the first South Korean film to win the Palme D’Or at Cannes and the first non-English film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture.