PARK CHAN-WOOK: (Korean) Something that brings me so much joy is when I hear the audience burst into laughter during an international screening of my films.

For me, humour is a critical element, so I put a lot of thought into making sure it’s delivered just right. From the start of the filmmaking process, I consider what might be universal in humour and can be understood by international viewers. I also examine whether this humour could be understood by viewers in the future, in Korea or beyond, generations from now. Some humour may be hilarious now, but might be met with yawns in ten or twenty years. That’s why I check to see if the humour would translate for both global audiences and future Korean viewers. I also take great pains to make sure subtitle translations are done well. I literally sit with the translator to review every word.

‘Geum-ja, what brings you here at this hour?’

‘I need an advance on my salary’

‘No advances’

This scene is a prime example of humour lost in translation. It features a hilarious pun in Korean that is impossible to translate, so it completely loses its effect. So when seeing that the audience got the joke, I know the overall message delivery was successful. That’s how difficult it is for humour to overcome cultural and linguistic barriers. Making genre films is my standard practice. Whatever story I imagine the default mindset I have is to begin within the conventions of a genre. I’ve never worked on anything, just for the sake of commercial success or box office numbers. I always think about whether the work can be truly satisfying from an artistic or creative perspective, constantly rethinking and editing until I get closer to what the audience would enjoy.

But when it comes to the PARKing CHANce project, I purposefully departed from my usual approach to create films that no longer conformed to genres. One of such films is the short film ‘Night Fishing’, which isn’t one of my more well-known works. My younger brother and I shot the film entirely on an iPhone 4. It’s a film that constantly surprises the viewers through its originality and reflects its rootedness in Korean culture.

In the world of filmmaking creating hierarchy based on age or years of experience is meaningless. We are all colleagues and equals that can help one another and fill in gaps for each other, it can be a great process. I regularly provide support to the film directors that I work with, but I also ask them to read over my screenplays and seek to receive their advice. It’s a give-and-take process. By having discussions with those directors, I learn so much from them. We all learn so much from each other. I gain an expanded perspective that I wouldn’t be able to if I trapped myself in my own little world. This is what I hope these directors feel, too