Park Chan-wook

Park Chan-wook is married, but there are no details about his married life as the director makes a conscious effort to keep his personal life away from the tabloids.

Park Chan-wook was born on August 23, 1963, in Seoul, South Korea. After completing his high school, Park attended Sogang University, where he studied Philosophy.

While studying Philosophy, Park started a club called ‘Sogang Film Community’ and started writing various film articles on contemporary cinema.

While in college, he thought of becoming a film critic. However, after his graduation he started his career as an assistant director.

Park started working as an assistant director for movies like ‘Kkamdong’ and ‘Watercolor Painting in a Rainy Day.’

He made his directorial debut with ‘The Moon Is... the Sun’s Dream’ in 1992. He also carried on with his writings and got his works published in film magazines and journals.

His debut film tanked at the box office as it couldn’t attract the desired number of audience. In 1997, he made another movie titled, ‘Trio,’ which too, didn’t perform well at the box office.

He then worked as a writer in a movie titled ‘Anarchists’ in 2000. In the same year, he delivered his first successful movie, ‘Joint Security Area.’ The movie was a commercial as well as a critical success and eventually became the highest-grossing Korean film at the time of its release.

After creating one of Korea’s most successful movies, he came up with another major hit, ‘Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance.’ This movie too, was a critical as well as a commercial hit.

In the interim, he also wrote two movies, ‘The Humanist’ and ‘A Bizarre Love Triangle’ in 2001 and 2002 respectively.

In 2003, he directed another mind-boggling mystery thriller, ‘Oldboy,’ which smashed the box-office records while also becoming a critical success. The movie became a major success, not only in Korea, but also in the US.

The movie became so popular in the USA, that Spike Lee remade it in America, and released it in 2013. The title of the movie was retained for its remake.

In 2005, he released ‘Lady Vengeance’ which too, became a blockbuster. The plot of the movie was interconnected with his previous two films. Thus ‘Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance’ and ‘Oldboy’ came to be known as prequels to ‘Lady Vengeance.’