MASTER OF THE DARK

South Korean director Park Chan-wook has bent the imaginations of many with his aesthetics of extreme violence. But beyond the tongue cutting and neck biting is his sympathetic and humanistic take on our nature

By Zabrina Lo

It was as quiet as the grave in the main hall of Hong Kong’s M+ museum when Park Chan-wook strode in for his film masterclass in December last year—a very deliberate metaphor when it comes to the award-winning South Korean director best known for his canon of brutally violent cinema. Park’s rare visit to Hong Kong was to promote his latest feature film Decision to Leave (2022), which is his first release in six years. Fans, museum staff and the media were curious to see what new and twisted method he would employ to sentence his characters to death after three decades of bewildering imaginations—the antagonist in Oldboy (2003) puts a bullet in his brain; in Lady Vengeance (2005), a child murderer is mutilated by the victims’ families who queue…

You're reading a preview of

Tatler Hong Kong (Digital) - 1 Issue, April 2024

DiscountMags is a licensed distributor (not a publisher) of the above content and Publication through Zinio LLC. Accordingly, we have no editorial control over the Publications. Any opinions, advice, statements, services, offers or other information or content expressed or made available by third parties, including those made in Publications offered on our website, are those of the respective author(s) or publisher(s) and not of DiscountMags. DiscountMags does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, truthfulness, or usefulness of all or any portion of any publication or any services or offers made by third parties, nor will we be liable for any loss or damage caused by your reliance on information contained in any Publication, or your use of services offered, or your acceptance of any offers made through the Service or the Publications. For content removal requests, please contact Zinio.