Park Chan-wook, Cannes Film Festival jury president: his essential films, from ‘Oldboy’ to ‘The Handmaiden’

Park Chan-wook’s The Handmaiden is a South Korean film adaptation of Sarah Waters’ novel Fingersmith. While it could easily be classified as an erotic psychological thriller, which it is, critics and fans celebrate it as a subversive LGBTQ+ love story.

Kim Tae-ri (Twenty Five Twenty One, Mr Sunshine) plays Sook-hee, a thief who installs herself as handmaiden to the sheltered Lady Hideko, played by Kim Min-hee (On the Beach at Night Alone, By the Stream). Secretly, she’s working with the self-styled Count Fujiwara—Ha Jung-woo (Narco Saints, The Yellow Sea)—to con her mistress into falling for him so they can defraud her of her inheritance.

Complications arise when romance blooms between the handmaiden and the lady, leading to an elaborate counter-con. The storytelling is so layered, it feels like peeling an onion, only to find another one beneath it. It demands attention and mental dexterity from its audience—a task made easy by a film you can hardly take your eyes away from.

Beyond the plot, The Handmaiden has been hailed for its judicious exploration of Korean and Japanese colonial relations, LGBTQ+ themes and classist divisions without ever being heavy-handed or letting these themes overwhelm the story.

See more: Kim Tae-ri at 36: her best K-dramas every fan should watch

Director Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice is a dark comedy adapted from Donald E Westlake’s The Ax. The film skewers late-stage capitalism, corporate greed and patriarchal power structures with Park’s signature blend of razor-sharp satire, stylish violence and pitch-black humour.

It’s timely, too. Anyone who has been a victim of downsizing—especially in this day and age—knows that unemployment is no joke and the job market can be brutal. It centres on Yoo Man-su, played brilliantly by Lee Byung-hun (Squid Game, The Good, The Bad, and The Weird). A successful family man with a beautiful home, a lovely wife, two children and two golden retrievers—he has it all. 

But things take a turn when he loses a job he’s had for over 20 years. Wife Mi-ri, played by Son Ye-jin (Crash Landing on You, Something in the Rain) is ever supportive, even as they are forced to downsize radically. It doesn’t take long before the pressures of being the breadwinner and crippling despair push him to go on a bumbling murder spree to eliminate the competition.

Sitting at 97 per cent fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, critics agree that Park Chan-wook is on top form here—bringing his exquisite eye at delivering stunning visuals and razor-tight pacing, and wickedly dark humour to the screen.

The film took home several Blue Dragon Film Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, and Best Film at the Baeksang Arts Awards. It was also nominated for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, Best Motion Picture – Non-English Language and Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy at the most recent Golden Globe Awards.

In Decision to Leave, the South Korean director turns his gaze to romance. While the film still falls under neo-noir, it is tender and more sentimental than his earlier works. It stars Park Hae-il (War of the Arrows, Memories of Murder) as Hae-joon—a detective investigating the death of a man who falls off a cliff under circumstances that don’t quite add up—and Tang Wei (Lust, Caution, Wonderland) as Seo-rae, the wife of the deceased and the prime suspect.

As Hae-joon starts his obsessive surveillance of Seo-rae, he finds himself falling for her, blurring boundaries between duty, desire and maybe even the truth. In lesser films, that premise alone would be enough, but this is just the first half of the film. The second half is where the twists and turns become even more sinuous and slippery. This is Park Chan-wook after all.

Decision to Leave marks a clear departure from what audiences have come to expect from Park Chan-wook, but the police-procedural romance still explores familiar themes of vengeance, betrayal and violence. The film also bears all the hallmarks of the director’s artistry—sharp visual storytelling, inventive camerawork and simmering emotional tension. It’s little wonder that Park took home the Best Director prize at the 75th Cannes Film Festival.

The final entry in Park Chan-wook’s “Vengeance Trilogy”, Sympathy for Lady Vengeance stars Lee Young-ae (A Jewel in the Palace, Saimdang, Memoir of Colours) as Lee Geum-ja, who is blackmailed into taking the fall for an unspeakable crime she did not commit. Choi Min-sik—who played the avenger in Oldboy—switches sides and plays Mr Baek, a serial child killer.

Geum-ja would have everyone believe that she spent 13 years in prison cultivating friendships with inmates, a model of good behaviour, rehabilitated by faith. But the truth is, she has spent all that time and energy plotting her revenge against Mr Baek.

The film is a visual feast, frequently singled out for its use of colour and lighting, and elegant camerawork. Beyond the stylised beauty—and amidst the signature visceral violence—Park Chan-wook leans into themes of motherhood, guilt, justice and whether vengeance truly brings peace.

In Thirst, winner of the 2009 Cannes Film Festival Jury Prize, Park Chan-wook ventures into vampire territory. At that time, entertainment and pop culture were in the grip of a vampire obsession, thanks to Twilight, Vampire Diaries, True Blood and Let the Right One In.

Thirst, an adaptation of Emile Zola’s Thérèse Raquin, except with vampires, stars Song Kang-ho (Parasite, Snowpiercer, Broker) as Sang-hyun, a young priest who nobly volunteers for a medical experiment that inadvertently turns him into something altogether unholy. His strong moral code may prevent him from hunting down victims for their blood (he instead drinks from IV drips during pastoral visits to the hospital), but it doesn’t keep him from lusting after his childhood friend’s wife, Tae-ju (Kim Ok-vin).

Thirst places the moral struggle Sang-hyun must face front and centre, sinking its teeth into dark compulsions, carnal desires, human frailty, guilt and even faith. With this film, Park Chan-wook adds a humorous, sensual and tragic entry to the pantheon of vampire films of the era.

Stoker is Park Chan-wook’s first Hollywood film and English-language debut. Written by Wentworth Miller (yes, actor Wentworth Miller from Prison Break), the modern gothic horror stars Academy Award-winner Nicole Kidman (Moulin Rouge, The Hours, The Others), Mia Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland, Jane Eyre) and Matthew Goode (The Imitation Game, A Single Man). It is a chilling coming-of-age thriller anchored by the psychological evolution of a young sociopath.

When India Stoker’s (Wasikowska) beloved father dies, her mysterious Uncle Charlie (Goode) arrives to stir up trouble. Intrigued by the same darkness she recognises in herself, young India is reluctantly drawn to him. Twisted and perverse, Charlie sets about destroying the brittle relationship India shares with her cold and distant mother, Evelyn (Kidman), in order to push his niece to embrace her killer instincts.

The leads’ arresting performances and the film’s compelling visual storytelling are designed to unnerve, and they succeed with the precision of a surgeon’s scalpel. Every scene is taut with Hitchcockian suspense, often drawing comparisons to Alfred Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt.

While the brutality in Stoker is quieter than the auteur’s other films, it is no less destructive, leaving a trail of dead bodies in its wake.

From the operatic violence of Oldboy to the melancholic romance of Decision to Leave, Park Chan-wook has cemented himself as one of contemporary cinema’s most visionary directors. As the Cannes jury president this year, there’s no better time to revisit the South Korean auteur’s most acclaimed films and discover why his work continues to shape modern cinema.

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