Do we like Park Chan-wook?
Our score: 8 out of 10. Nothing harmful surfaced, he has given real money and spoken up on democracy, and the only blot is a contested guild expulsion.
Park Chan-wook is the South Korean director who this year became the first Korean to head the Cannes jury. At the opening press conference he said Korean cinema is no longer peripheral, but he wouldn't hand Korean entries bonus points. That's a fair-minded start for someone judging a field of rivals.
He's also candid about being a bit married to the job. Talking about No Other Choice, his film about work and identity, he said it is “very difficult to define my identity outside of filmmaking”. He added that tying your job to your life is dangerous. That's a self-aware thing for a bloke at the top of his game to say.
The one real stoush is with the Writers Guild of America. TheWrap reported in August 2025 that the guild expelled him and his co-writer over their work on The Sympathizer during the 2023 strike, and the guild didn't spell out the violations. He has denied breaking the rules. Allegations like this are about union discipline, not a court finding, and it's a mark on the record rather than a pattern.
On the harm test, we found nothing nasty in his own words or acts. When asked at Cannes whether art and politics should be kept apart, he rejected the idea, calling it “strange to think of politics and art as opposing concepts”. In December 2024 he urged people to pressure People Power Party lawmakers over the vote to impeach then-president Yoon Suk Yeol, and at the 2025 Baeksang Awards he said the country needs a leader who fears the people. That's a clear political stance, but it's about democracy, not against any group. The honest gap is that the sources we read say little about LGBTQ+ or climate questions.
The recent political noise isn't about him personally. Former People Power Party councillor Lee Jong-bae accused the director of Assassin(s), Hur Jin-ho, and the production team of criminal defamation over the film. Park only praised its craft at a screening talk, and no complaint against him was reported. It shows how a public word of praise can pull him into Korea's culture wars.
The good stuff is real. On 31 August he gave another 100 million won to a Jeju scholarship fund for the descendants of Jeju uprising victims, taking his total to 200 million won. In May, France made him a Commandeur of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, the fourth Korean to get it.