Bong joon ho biography of barack

South Korean filmmaker (born 1969)

In this Korean name, the family name is Bong.

Bong Joon-ho (Korean: 봉준호, Korean pronunciation:[poːŋtɕuːnho→poːŋdʑunɦo]; born September 14, 1969) is a South Korean filmmaker. The recipient of three Academy Awards, his work is characterized by emphasis on social and class themes, genre-mixing, dark comedy, and sudden tone shifts.

Bong first became known to audiences and achieved a cult following with his directorial debut film, the black comedy Barking Dogs Never Bite (2000). He later achieved both critical and commercial success with his subsequent films: the crime thriller Memories of Murder (2003), the monster film The Host (2006), the science fiction action film Snowpiercer (2013), which served as Bong's English language debut, and the acclaimed black comedy thriller Parasite (2019). All of these are among the highest-grossing films in South Korea, with Parasite also being the highest-grossing South Korean film in history.

All of Bong's films have been South Korean productions, although Snowpiercer, Okja (2017) and Mickey 17 (2025) are Hollywood co-productions with major use of the English language. Two of his films have screened in competition at the Cannes Film Festival—Okja in 2017 and Parasite in 2019; the latter earned the Palme d'Or, which was a first for a South Korean film. Considered an immediate favorite by the Academy Awards, Parasitebecame the first South Korean film to receive Academy Award nominations, with Bong winning Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay, making Parasite the first film in the award's history not in English to win Best Picture. In 2017, Bong was included on Metacritic's list of the 25 best film directors of the 21st century. In 2020, Bong was included in Time's annual list of 100 Most Influential People^[8]

Filmmaker Bong Joon-ho’s (entering class of  ’88, Sociology) Parasite dominated the 92nd Academy Awards, crowning four Oscars: Best Picture, Best Director, Best International Feature Film, and Best Original Screenplay. 

As the first film in 92-year Oscar history to win both Best International Feature and Best Picture, Parasite’s momentous victory reflects the movie academy’s increasing focus on international cinema and representation. Bong is the second Asian to win Best Director, with Parasite, co-written by Bong himself and Han Jin Won, the first Asian film ever to win Best Original Screenplay.

Parasite received six total nominations at this year's Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director for Bong, Best Original Screenplay, Best Film Editing, Best Production Design, and Best International Feature Film. 

Parasite has already collected numerous high-profile awards, including the Best Motion Picture – Foreign Language at the 77th Golden Globes (2020), and it was the first South Korean film to crown the Palme d’Or at the 72nd Cannes Film Festival (2019). The cast also received international acclaim – Parasite was the first foreign-language movie to win the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture (2020).

Learn about director Bong’s experiences as a director and his fondest memories as a Yonsei student in an exclusive interview with student-led English monthly The Yonsei Annals last December. 

Born in Korea, Bong Joon Ho made his feature film debut with the darkly comedic BARKING DOGS NEVER BITE (2000) before gaining international acclaim with MEMORIES OF MURDER (2003) for which he won the Silver Shell for Best Director at San Sebastián Film Festival. THE HOST (2006), his subsequent film about an ordinary family battling an extraordinary monster was premiered at Cannes Director’s Fortnight and later selected as one of the ten best films of the 2000s by Cahiers du Cinéma. MOTHER (2009) his next film, premiered at Cannes Un certain Regard won numerous awards from various critics societies including Best Actress Award at the LA Film Critics Association and Best Foreign Language Film Award at Boston Society of Film Critics Awards. He made his first foray into international production with SNOWPIERCER (2013), which starred Chris Evans, John Hurt, Tilda Swinton, Ed Harris, and Octavia Spencer, and followed it up with OKJA (2017), which also boasted a stellar international cast and screened in competition at the Cannes Film Festival. His latest film PARASITE premiered at Cannes, where it went on to win the Palme d’Or. Other accolades for the film include a David di Donatello Award, a Golden Globe, a Critics Choice Award, and BAFTA Awards for Best Screenplay and Best Foreign Language Film. At the 92nd Academy Awards, the film won Best Original Screenplay, Best Director, Best International Feature Film, and Best Picture.

Born on September 14, 1969, in Daegu, South Korea, Bong Joon Ho discovered a passion for cinema early on, watching movies on TV.

“My mother was a little bit of a compulsive germophobe,” he recalls, as to why television was his primary conduit into film, “and because, in the movie theater, you don’t have a lot of sunlight, she insisted that it was filled with a lot of germs.” His channel of choice was the American Armed Forces Network, which would broadcast Western films, including works by Sidney Lumet, Brian De Palma, and Sam Peckinpah, albeit in censored form, leaving the young Bong to imagine what had been edited out. This early exposure to the world of cinema would blossom into obsession—after enrolling at Yonsei University in 1988, he sold donuts at the school cafeteria for six months in order to save up enough money to buy a Hitachi camera, and would fall asleep holding it.

At Yonsei (incidentally the same school one of the characters in Parasite pretends to have attended), he would study sociology, though film remained his true love. Along with a handful of other students from neighboring universities, he cofounded a film club, Yellow Door (so named because the club room door was painted yellow), and was in charge of managing the club’s video collection and bootlegging films. He would also shoot his first short films while at Yonsei, a stop-motion film called Looking for Paradise (which unfortunately seems impossible to track down) as well as a live-action film titled White Man (1994)—the latter short would serve as a launching pad for Bong to attend the Korean Academy of Film Arts.

To date, Bong has made seven feature works: Barking Dogs Never Bite (2000); Memories of Murder (2003); The Host (2006); Mother (2009); Snowpiercer (2013); Okja (2017); and Parasite (2019). In speaking to the pre