Park Kwang-Su on AllMovie

A leading figure in the emergence of the new, politically charged, aesthetically daring Korean cinema of the 1990s, Park Kwang-su, like his contemporary Kim Ki-duk, found his way to filmmaking through fine art. Born in the Kangwon province, he grew up in the southern port city of Pusan before going to Seoul National University to study sculpture. While there, Park became interested in film and joined the Yallasung Film Group, a collective of filmmakers making shorts on Super-8 film. After graduating, he formed the Seoul Film Group, which was affiliated with the student protest movement and devoted to renewing Korean cinema. He then went to Paris to take a film course at the ESEC film school, before returning to Korea to work as an assistant director for Lee Chang-ho (who made seminal films like Declaration of Fools and The Man With Three Coffins, among others). Park directed his first feature in 1988, the politically-tinged buddy comedy Chilsu and Mansu, the film credited with kick-starting the Korean New Cinema. Although it was heavily censored, his second film, Black Republic (1990), is a scathing look at life under Korea's military government told in a film noir style. In 1993, he made history by becoming the first Korean filmmaker to form his own independent production company. Its first release, To the Starry Island (1993), was also the first film to receive co-financing from Western sources. Set on an isolated island, it's a moving allegory-in-microcosm of the split between North and South Korea. That and his next film, A Single Spark (1996), which is based on the true story of a labor organizer who immolated himself in protest of the government, are regarded as two of the most important films of the Korean New Wave. The Uprising (1999), another fiercely political film, depicted the France-backed persecution of Christian groups in Korea. While all of Park's movies are firmly rooted in the political history of his country, he belongs to a group of international filmmakers, including Iran's Samira Makhmalbaf and Taiwan's Hou Hsiao-hsien, whose work transcends their specific political situations to address, with great artistry, more universal issues of human freedom.