South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho is one of the most prominent figures in international cinema, with a rare combination of highbrow acclaim and mainstream success.
Bong has won Oscars, BAFTAs and the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, and he’s also responsible for some of the highest-grossing movies in South Korean cinema history. His films range from high-concept sci-fi to gritty crime drama, all with the same visual flair and sly wit.
Following his early success in South Korea, Bong has made movies both in Hollywood and in his native country, and he’s one of the key figures in the rise of South Korean pop culture around the world.
As his latest film, the Robert Pattinson-starring sci-fi epic “Mickey 17,” hits theaters, here’s a look at how all of Bong’s past films stack up.
7. ‘Okja’
Bong’s weakest film takes on more than it can handle, with jarring tonal shifts and grating, miscalculated oddball performances from Tilda Swinton and Jake Gyllenhaal.
The title refers to a genetically engineered “super-pig” that bonds with a Korean tween (An Seo Hyun) who’s determined to save it from predetermined slaughter. Bong’s films are often blunt and provocative, but even by those standards, “Okja” is heavy-handed and pedantic with its takedown of factory farming.
Bong is still an inventive filmmaker, and “Okja” has a fantastic chase sequence and some top-notch special effects, giving Okja itself an impressive presence. The movie lurches from gentle child-animal bonding to thudding social commentary to whatever Gyllenhaal is attempting, and Bong isn’t able to hold it together.
“Okja” is a mess, but like all his films, it’s still ambitious and bold.
►Watch on Netflix
6. ‘Memories of Murder’
Bong’s second film was the first to bring him international recognition, with a bleak story inspired by the then-unsolved case of South Korea’s first documented serial killer.
Frequent Bong collaborator Song Kang-ho plays a crude rural police detective who resents the intrusion of a big-city cop (Kim Sang-kyung), who’s been sent from Seoul to aid with his investigation into a series of brutal murders.
Bong’s trademark mix of humor and despair keeps the movie off-kilter, although the procedural storytelling is sometimes repetitive. At its best, “Memories of Murder” is a stark examination of the terror of the unknown, as the detectives seem to get further from the truth the longer they investigate.
Set in 1986, it also deals with a pivotal transitional period in South Korean history, filtering various deeper observations through the lens of its crime story.
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5. ‘The Host’
This monster movie helped Bong reach a wider audience, winning him near-universal acclaim in the U.S. and the chance to work on a larger scale.
Even though it has a much smaller budget than a Hollywood blockbuster, “The Host” still feels expansive, with its story about a pollution-created monster rising up from the Han River and terrorizing the residents of Seoul.
In the tradition of classics ranging from “Godzilla” to “The Blob,” Bong uses the monster as an allegory for the failures of institutions to protect ordinary people, personified by humble snack vendor Park Gang-du (Song Kang-ho).
After his teenage daughter is kidnapped by the monster, Gang-du rallies the rest of his family to rescue her, in a story that combines surprisingly heartwarming comedy with chaotic, thrilling set pieces.
►Watch on Max
4. ‘Barking Dogs Never Bite’
It’s not surprising that audiences were initially turned off by Bong’s 2000 debut feature, which focuses on a protagonist who straight-up murders multiple dogs.
Somehow, it’s also Bong’s funniest movie, a dark comedy about the alienation of modern urban living, in which everything has been reduced to a callous, impersonal transaction.
Frustrated, unemployed grad student Ko Yun-ju (Lee Sung-jae) is driven into a rage by the relentless barking of a dog in his vast apartment complex, but his fury is balanced out by the friendliness of wide-eyed office worker Park Hyun-nam (Bae Doona).
The two characters come together in amusing and unexpected ways, as Bong explores the tragic absurdities of trying to find your place in life, all set to a smoky, jazzy score.
►Watch on Prime Video
3. ‘Mother’
Although it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, was a box-office hit in South Korea, and was lauded by critics in the U.S., this intense drama may still be Bong’s most underrated film.
Kim Hye-ja gives a powerful, riveting performance as the unnamed title character, who goes to extraordinary lengths to protect her mentally disabled son (Won Bin) after he’s accused of murder.
“Mother” explores the dark side of parental love, as the mother becomes increasingly maniacal in her single-minded pursuit of her son’s exoneration. Bong takes the structure of a familiar drama about a parent seeking justice and twists it into something sinister but also strangely touching.
As savage as the mother gets, she never loses her pure love for her son, which motivates every one of her shocking actions.
2. ‘Snowpiercer’
Bong’s first English-language movie adapts a French graphic novel set in a post-apocalyptic future where the remnants of humanity live together on a massive train that continuously circumnavigates the frozen Earth.
It’s best not to think about the logistics of this set-up, and instead revel in the creativity that Bong brings to the story of an uprising by the train’s impoverished inhabitants against the decadent rich who live in the cars at the front.
Chris Evans plays the leader of the rebels, with Song Kang-ho as the engineer he enlists to help his faction take over the train. Tilda Swinton and Alison Pill give especially entertaining unhinged performances as agents of the train’s elite overlords.
Bong offers up a powerful statement about climate change and class consciousness — within a fantastical, constantly moving vehicular microcosm.
►Watch on The Roku Channel
1. ‘Parasite’
![Parasite [Trailer 2] – Now Playing in New York & Los Angeles. - YouTube](https://img.youtube.com/vi/PhPROyE0OaM/maxresdefault.jpg)
It’s hard to overstate the achievements of Bong’s 2019 Oscar-winning hit, which became the first-ever non-English-language Best Picture winner.
Returning to Korea after two Hollywood films, Bong delivers a scathing satire and a tense thriller, about a struggling working-class family who insinuate themselves into the lives of a much wealthier family, via a series of fabrications and manipulations.
Although it deals with heavy subject matter about capitalist exploitation, “Parasite” is just as clever and purely entertaining as any Bong movie, with great performances, including from Song Kang-ho as the patriarch of the destitute Kim family.
The story builds to an equally harrowing and scathing climax, as both families face harsh reckonings when the ruse falls apart. Bong indicts the entire system that allows for such inequality and desperation.
►Watch on Netflix
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