The Films of Bong Joon Ho

The Films of Bong Joon-ho is the first single-authored, book-length study of the world-renowned Korean director who is known for his unique construction of genre films. Although his films enjoy tremendous transnational appeal globally, they cannot be fully appreciated without contextualizing them within the concrete local realities from which they were conceived and produced. Lee provides a detailed account of Korean contemporary cultural and political history that is critical to a full appreciation of Bong’s oeuvre. The book accomplish this in part by drawing on both Korean and English scholarly references, bringing together different perspectives in viewing and interpreting Bong’s cinematic arts. Including discussion of The Host, Snowpiercer, Parasite and many others, the aesthetics and the cinematic in Bong’s unique genre films are firmly situated within the history and politics of his time.