Park Chan-wook, aka “Old Boy,” has returned to the Cannes Film Festival 

Park Chan-wook, the globally acclaimed South Korean director, has entered the Cannes Picture Festival 2022 with a film that, in many respects, is a radical shift in style and substance from his past work.

Park’s newest film, ‘Decision to Leave,’ opened here on Monday. Park’s 2004 Cannes Grand Prix winner ‘Old Boy’ helped to open the floodgates for Korean filmmakers on the French Riviera, culminating in Bong Joon-legendary ho’s Palme d’Or success with ‘Parasite.’

He doesn’t think ‘Decision to Leave,’ which isn’t as sexy as his 2016 Competition entry ‘The Handmaiden’ or as violent as ‘Old Boy,’ is all that different from the rest of his illustrious filmography.

He said, “This question would not have arisen at all had this been a film by some other director,” added, “I met distributors from across the world here yesterday and some of them suggested that ‘Decision to Leave’ marks a new development in my career.”

“I contradicted them. I certainly wanted to make a film for adults. But a film for adults does not necessarily mean an erotic or graphically violent film,” asserts Park.

‘Decision to Leave’ has been well welcomed in this country. As the 75th Cannes Film Festival winds down and the jury settles down to select the ultimate winners, it is expected to remain in Palme d’Or contention. Park is no stranger to winning awards at Cannes. Thirst, his film from 2009, got a Jury Prize here.

The film centres on a blossoming connection between a straight-laced and devoted Busan detective (Park Hae-il) and a Chinese lady accused of murdering her Korean husband, who falls to his death from a mountain. Tang Wei, who starred in Ang Lee’s film ‘Lust, Caution,’ plays the Chinese woman.

“Yes, the mountain and the sea are omnipresent in the film,” says the director. “Like the two characters at the heart of the story, they keep changing colours according to the weather,” he explains. “That is how light works. Even a blue dress might appear green or turquoise as the light changes.”

“I do not make films to reflect my life,” he says. “I really do not know how much of my personality and thoughts have crept into ‘Decision to Leave’, but I agree that it is when people are in love that they are best able to reveal their inner selves.”

Some journalists in Cannes have compared Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” to “Decision to Leave,” according to Park.

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“I would like to tell them that I did not have Hitchcock’s film, or any other film, in mind when ‘Decision to Leave’ was being written,” he says.

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