Top 25 Park Chan-wook Quotes

I don’t think I’ve ever tried to make something happen that I’ve absolutely had to force. You know how they say: if you can’t avoid it, enjoy it. For me, it’s the other way around: if I can’t enjoy it, I avoid it.

I love Philip Glass’ work, not only as a film composer but also as a musician. The film score work that he does always amazes and shocks me.

When I was making my first films, I was very interested in Hollywood B movies.

In our lives, we have good things and bad things, happiness and pain.

The reason I want to show shocking things is that they always pose an ethical question.

When I was growing up, we were taught in school that North Koreans, and especially the North Korean leadership, were all devils.

I am sure I am one of 2,000 film directors in the world that Tarantino admires.

I’ve read all of Sarah Waters’s novels which have been translated into Korean.

If I want to relax and not do anything, I don’t want to leave home.

A film set is a workplace for me; it’s my office, and nobody really wants to be in a stressful work environment.

I’d like to do a really masculine film.

I don’t really believe in the auteur theory.

If you would ask me what my ideal process is, I would say, long pre-production, long production and long post-production.

When you first hear Mozart’s music, your first impression is that it’s very alive, but if you peel away the layers, you can hear sorrow and sadness behind it, and that’s what I try to be: multi-layered.

I hate jeans for no reason.

People who really try to be conscious of what they have done, who take responsibility, to me these kinds of people are heroes.

I guess I probably make violent films partly because I can’t express my anger in my real life very well.

I became a film director, but I wasn’t successful with my first couple of films, so I had to turn to becoming a film critic to make a living.

Actors, I think, are all the same. Both Korean actors and American actors are all very sensitive people, and they are all curious to know what the director thinks of them and how they are evaluated, and they try to satisfy the director. And they like it if you listen carefully to their opinions and accept them.

If your work requires you to travel, you will understand that there’s no vacation destination like home.

Visual elements are, of course, the director’s job.

I do like musical films more than big Hollywood films, especially those by Jacques Demi and Vincent Minelli.

When I say that I am going to do an American film, I didn’t want to suddenly go off into a completely different world that which bears no relation to the style of filmmaking that I’m used to.

There’s a humble beauty about listening to period instruments that I like.

Certain subjects may no longer be taboo in cinema. But there are ways to treat them that still create shock.