Chanwook Park Profiled « Making the Movie

13Apr/060

Chanwook Park Profiled

Director Chanwook Park If you have seen the cinematic thunderstorm that is Oldboy, you might enjoy this long NYTimes Magazine profile:

I wondered what, precisely, Choi's input on "Oldboy" had been. I knew that Choi had played Hamlet on the stage. In Asia, "Hamlet" is usually interpreted as a revenge play. I asked him whether this was because Korean theater was often about revenge. He replied that the "Hamlet" production he starred in interpreted the play that way, but both he and Park quickly assured me that this had nothing to do with Korean tradition. Japanese theater is often about revenge, but Korean culture, in Park's words, is "more about forgiving — forgiving too easily, in fact."

--Mr. Vengeance - New York Times