Bong Joon-ho: biting film satirist

South Korea’s Bong Joon-ho is an acclaimed filmmaker known for dark and genre-hopping thrillers, and his Golden Globe-winning “Parasite” – a vicious satire about the widening gap between rich and poor – features all of his trademarks.

With a series of critical and commercial hits behind him, Bong is one of South Korea’s best-known faces, claiming multiple prizes at home and making inroads into Hollywood – a rarity for an Asian auteur filmmaker.

The movie’s Golden Globe win for best foreign language film is the first award for a Korean in any category at the gala, and comes after the 100th anniversary of Korean cinema in 2019.

“Parasite” also took the Palme d’Or at Cannes last year, and this latest accolade will intensify the Oscar buzz it has been generating as awards season heats up.

Once likened by Quentin Tarantino to “Steven Spielberg in his prime,” Bong was among the first wave of South Korean filmmakers to blossom after the country’s full democratization in the late 1980s, which opened the door for a cultural renaissance.

His “Memories of Murder” – a 2003 feature film based on real-life serial killings that rattled the nation in the 1980s – was seen as a metaphor for the repressive society of military rule.

Bong’s 2006 monster blockbuster “The Host” portrayed an incompetent government left helpless in the wake of a disaster. In 2014, parallels were drawn between the film and the Seoul ferry sinking that killed 300, mostly schoolchildren.

“Mother” – a 2009 thriller about the overprotective mother of a mentally disabled boy suspected of murder – was also a huge success.

His 2013 film “Snowpiercer” depicted a dystopian future in which the last humans on Earth – who survived a failed attempt to stop global warming – travel endlessly on a train separated by class, and the lower class revolts.

Tilda Swinton, who was in “Snowpiercer,” also starred in Bong’s Netflix-produced 2017 sci-fi action-adventure “Okja” about a country girl trying to save a genetically-engineered beast from a greedy multinational firm.