Successful cult films like
The Host
and
Snowpiercer
proved to be harbingers for Bong Joon Ho’s enormous breakthrough success with
Parasite
. Joseph Jonghyun Jeon provides a consideration of the director’s entire career and the themes, ambitions, techniques, and preoccupations that infuse his works. As Jeon shows, Bong’s sense of spatial and temporal dislocations creates a hall of mirrors that challenges us to answer the parallel questions
Where are we?
When are we?
. Jeon also traces Bong’s oeuvre from its early focus on Korea’s US-fueled modernization to examining the entanglements of globalization in
Mother
and his subsequent films. A complete filmography and in-depth interview with the director round out the book.
Insightful and engaging,
Bong Joon Ho
offers an up-to-date analysis of the genre-bending international director.