LOS ANGELES - Writer-director Bong Joon Ho made Oscar history Sunday night, capturing Oscars for best director and best international feature with his dark comic thriller, 鈥淧arasite,鈥 the first South Korean film to win an Academy Award in any category.
In capturing the best director Oscar, Bong beat out a cast of previous winners and film legends that included Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino and Sam Mendes, and he paid tribute to all of them in his acceptance speech.
鈥淲hen I was in school I studied Martin Scorsese's films. Just to be honoured was a huge honour. I never thought I would win," he said. 鈥淲hen people in the US were not familiar with my films Quentin always put my films on his list.鈥
He also praised fellow nominees Sam Mendes and Todd Phillips as 鈥済reat directors鈥 he admires, adding he wished he could take a 鈥淭exas chain saw鈥 and cut the Oscar into five pieces so all the nominees could share it.
The category featured two previous winners in Scorsese and Mendes and a previous two-time nominee in Tarantino. This year鈥檚 nomination was Scorsese鈥檚 ninth.
In addition to his director Oscar, Bong also shared the best original screenplay award with his 鈥淧arasite鈥 co-writer Han Jin Won, while 鈥淧arasite" won the award for best picture.
鈥淭o win just one award would have been a huge celebration,鈥 speaking in Korean, he told reporters backstage, adding that taking four was such a surreal experience that he feared he might wake up and discover it never happened.
鈥淭hen, switching to English, he added an expletive as he said, 鈥淚t鈥檚 ... crazy,鈥 to raucous laughter and applause.
The best director category was not only one of the most competitive this year but also one of the most highly criticized for the fact that no women were nominated, including previous nominee Greta Gerwig, whose film 鈥淟ittle Women鈥 was up for best picture. Gerwig herself received a nomination for best adapted screenplay.
Also snubbed was Marielle Heller, whose 鈥淎 Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood鈥 garnered Tom Hanks a supporting actor nomination.
Only five women have been nominated for best director in the Oscars鈥 92-year history and only one, Kathryn Bigelow, has won, for 2009鈥檚 鈥淭he Hurt Locker.鈥
鈥淧arasite鈥檚鈥 sweep was groundbreaking, however, in that no South Korean film had previously won an Oscar in any category.
Bong said he believes more international films could win top honours in the future, however, now that streaming services like Netflix have made movie watching a global experience.
鈥淭his film was voted by the members of the academy and I know that that was signalling a different change for international cinema, not just Korea, 鈥渉e said.
鈥淧arasite,鈥 a critical and commercial success, features a cast largely unknown in the West. It tells the story of how an unemployed family of four living in a slum basement apartment comically con their way into the lives of one of Seoul鈥檚 wealthiest families before things begin to unravel darkly.
A favourite with critics, 鈥淧arasite鈥 won the Cannes Film Festival鈥檚 prestigious Palme d鈥橭r last year.
It was up against four other strong films, including Scorsese鈥檚 three-hour-plus epic, 鈥淭he Irishman,鈥 which starred Al Pacino, Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci in a tale about the still-unsolved mob murder of union boss Jimmy Hoffa.
Also nominated was Tarantino鈥檚 鈥淥nce Upon a Time ... In Hollywood,鈥 that paired Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt as a fading movie star (DiCaprio) and his loyal companion and stuntman in Pitt. It brought Pitt his first Academy Award.
Mendes鈥 鈥1917,鈥 with its arresting visual effects, told the story of two World War I British soldiers given the seemingly suicidal mission of crossing from France to Germany to warn their comrades of a sneak attack that would kill more than a thousand.
Phillips 鈥淭he Joker鈥 added a new twist to comic book hero Batman鈥檚 nemesis, portraying him not as inherently evil but as a tortured soul driven to madness by bullying. It won star Joaquin Phoenix a best actor Oscar.
