South Korea’s Bong goes from blacklist to blockbuster
Seoul — Only a few months ago South Korean director Bong Joon-ho was on a government blacklist. Now his big-budget movie Okja is being talked up as a contender for the top prize at the Cannes film festival. The mild-mannered filmmaker — who has been compared to "Steven Spielberg in his prime" by no less than Quentin Tarantino — was secretly targeted by the now ousted president Park Geun-hye, the daughter of a dictator. Under her, the authorities blacklisted nearly 10,000 artists and writers who expressed "left-wing thoughts" — meaning criticising her or her policies. "It was a such a nightmarish few years that left many South Korean artists deeply traumatised," Bong said. "Many are still reeling from the trauma," said the director, whose $50m Netflix feature — which will be shown for the first time on Friday — is about a young country girl who tries to save a genetically engineered beast from a greedy multinational company. The blacklist, aimed at starving the artists of state subsi...
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