Park Chan-wook Quotes

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

I believe there are more films that involve love and forgiveness than violence, but they often seem fake and are almost embarrassing to watch.

Actually, I can't stand watching violent scenes in films; I avoid watching horror films. I don't tend to watch action films mainly because I find them boring, but I watch the films of David Cronenberg and Martin Scorsese, usually in a state close to having a heart attack. I'm a complete coward. I make violent films as a result of my sensitivity to violence - in other words, my fear of violence.

In my opinion, all relationships between people have some sort of violence, and it is central.

Living without hate for people is almost impossible. There is nothing wrong with fantasizing about revenge. You can have that feeling. You just shouldn't act in it.

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

The point of revenge is not in the completion but in the process.

You could say that evil is contagious in that we have this mesmerizing mentor in Uncle Charlie who comes into your life. Every person has a seed of evil inside them, and when you come across such a mesmerizing mentor, he is able to successfully turn it into a flower of evil.

I don't really believe in the auteur theory.

I don't usually watch a lot of TV, but Mad Men changed my perspective. I admire Matthew Weiner who came up with the idea and wrote such a great TV series, and the broadcasting company for being bold enough to air such a series.

I actually pay careful attention to that sort of thing - infusing humor into my films - because that's how important I think humor is.

Certainly, it includes that. I want the story to be interpreted in as many ways as possible, and of course, the bad blood aspect of it included. For instance, perhaps this is a story not about the hereditary nature of evil, but rather you could interpret it from a different perspective, too.

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

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.

Sometimes you need these warm, human moments - something that feels close - to help things along.

The reason why I always wanted to make an American film was because of the Western genre. It is something that I would very much like to make in the future, because it's very uniquely American, and I can't make a Western film in Korean.

In Korea is what I do is I watch the playback of each take with all of the actors and spend a lot of time discussing each take. Also, I use the process we call auto-assembly because I storyboard my entire film right at the beginning, even before pre-production ever begins, so my vision is already laid out on the storyboard for everybody to share. It enables the on-set assembly person, as we call them, to cut together each take into a sequence. This enables a director to review the take within the context of the sequence of the scene.

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

Not only do I look at the playback with the actors, but I look at the on-set assembly footage with the sequences with my actors as well. These are the reasons why I take twice as much time to shoot a film in Korea. Thinking back, I remember on my first ever Korean film, I never used any playback or on-set assembly, so all I had to do was to tell myself it's just like making my first ever Korean-language film. After that, I felt right at home.

I've always had an interest in vampire films - not just 'Nosferatu,' but there are many others that I have enjoyed: Abel Ferrara,Coppola, Neil Jordan.

I've grown up watching a lot of Western genre films on TV, and America is not just a country, but it's one of the most important countries in the world, and examining the process of how this nation came to be, it's an important thing, even for outsiders.

Actors are professionals who deal with people's emotions and their thoughts.

I am sure I am one of 2000 film directors in the world that Tarantino admires.

I'm not the kind of director who aims to send a message out.

I believe 'love' is very nice to hear, but it's used so much that it's come to a point where it's almost meaningless.

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

When I'm writing something, if it gets too serious, I just can't bear it, so I take a step back and take the overall scene in and vent the air a little bit.

Whenever I visit a city, I like to see what classical music concerts are on offer.

I feel myself becoming more mature and more fascinated and drawn to feminine values.

I am not going to do a film based on a bad scenario just to make a big Hollywood film or work with Hollywood stars.

The audience seems hazy to me, shrouded in a veil through which I can't see.

If you are watching my films and wondering, am I missing humorous speak because I'm not Korean? Am I missing out? You don't have to worry, because you're only missing probably about a few cents worth out of your ticket price.

I grew up in a very Catholic family. Up until puberty, I would go to a Catholic church every week.

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

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

I have always meticulously storyboarded my films from beginning to end.

Actors are professionals who deal with people's emotions and their thoughts. So, working with this very intelligent, smart cast meant that sometimes I would only have to start speaking a word and these wonderful actors would immediately catch onto what I wanted them to portray, and how I wanted them to act.

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

As I grow older I spend more time with my wife, and gradually my interest in the woman's world is growing.

I tend not to use the humor which would only apply to Koreans, or which would only affect the Koreans, as much as I can.

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.

I'd like to do a really masculine film.

In my creative films, if there was something, some humorous moment that is lost to a non-Korean speaking audience, I'll be very sad.

Ever since I arrived in America to promote Stoker, I haven't had time to go and see it in a theater. The fact that I had to shoot twice as fast as I'm used to in Korea was the most challenging thing about my Hollywood experience.

Some audiences might find homosexuality an uncomfortable subject matter, and a character who is a Japanese collaborator is always uncomfortable.

A priest encounters temptation every day, and some of that desire is very natural.

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

I'd love to do a sci-fi movie, a western, or an espionage thriller. But I'm not going to limit myself. If a good script comes along, I'm not going to discount it because it doesn't fit into one of these genres.

Becoming a vampire means completely changing your identity.

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