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    The ‘Parasite’ Director Brings Class Warfare To Outer Space

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    Bong Joon Ho sent a text message a bit past noon, naming a subway station in Seoul and asking me to meet him there at 7 p.m. In his imperfect English, he signed off with a cryptic tease: “I’ll show you some ordinary but strange area. See you in front of GATE No. 4.”It was the summer of 2023, and I’d gone to South Korea to watch Bong work on his seventh feature film, “Mickey 17,” a sci-fi action-adventure featuring Robert Pattinson, Mark Ruffalo, Steven Yeun, Naomi Ackie and Toni Collette. Bong — or Director Bong, as he’s known among Koreans and collaborators — is his country’s highest-profile filmmaker, at home and abroad. His last movie, “Parasite” (2019), won four Academy Awards, including best picture and best director.Bong is drawn to confrontational, tone-scrambling material. “Irony and paradox,” he told me at one point, are “the driving force for me when I make films.” His style is to deploy genre conventions while subverting them in audacious and ingenious ways. As he once put it to a Korean interviewer, “Whatever genre I choose, I intend to destroy it.”His movies are also fun, which explains why Bong has enjoyed a long run not only of critical acclaim but also commercial success. His 2006 monster-movie deconstruction, “The Host,” broke all Korean box-office records. Among its champions is no less of a genre-subverter than Quentin Tarantino, who likened Bong to “Spielberg in his prime.” “Parasite,” a home-invasion deconstruction, earned even more, planting him firmly in the pantheon of bankable contemporary auteurs.Originally conceived for the stage, “Parasite” was a tightly focused Korean-language suspense story with an achingly ambiguous ending, no supernatural creatures and, unless you count its operatically grisly climax, zero action sequences. “Mickey 17” is a different beast entirely. Based on a 2022 novel by Edward Ashton, called “Mickey7,” the film is about a desperate loser named Mickey Barnes, played by Pattinson, who signs onto the crew of a spaceship as part of a campaign of intergalactic colonization. He’s tasked with the crushing work of an “Expendable”: His memories are uploaded so that his consciousness can be installed, as often as needed, into endlessly reprintable replicas of his body. These come in handy, because his job includes gulping down lung-liquefying airborne viruses and bathing himself in radiation, among other torturous and fatal work. At its core, Bong said, “it’s a story about working-class people. And I was attracted by the idea that his job is dying.”Social stratification has been the dominant theme in Bong’s films since he was a student. Whether he is working in more-realist registers or more-fantastical ones, he situates his heroes within superstructures of class and power that determine, and frequently deform, their lives. “Quite many of my characters are confused,” he said. “They’re in the middle of a situation and don’t know what’s going on. It’s sad and comic at the same time.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      South Korean Actress Kim Sae-ron Is Found Dead

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      The 24-year-old star, once a prolific child actor, appeared at the Cannes Film Festival and on Netflix, until a drunk-driving incident in 2022 derailed her career.South Korean actress Kim Sae-ron, a former child star whose promising career suffered a setback in recent years after a drunk-driving incident, was found dead in her home on Sunday afternoon, police said.Ms. Kim, who was 24, was discovered by a friend who had visited her house, according to the Seongdong Police Station in Seoul. The police on Monday said Ms. Kim’s death was a suicide. One of South Korea’s most lauded young actors, Ms. Kim had not appeared in any shows since she faced public criticism after being convicted of driving under the influence of alcohol in 2022.Her death marks the latest tragedy to strike South Korea’s booming but high-pressure entertainment industry, which has faced criticism for the toll it places on the mental health of its burgeoning stars. A celebrity’s popularity is often contingent on a spotless reputation, experts say.Over the past few years, several young stars were ruled to have died by suicide, one after receiving hate messages for being outspoken and opinionated, and another after a legal battle put her romantic and sex life in the public domain.Ms. Kim started her acting career by starring in “A Brand New Life,” a film about a girl abandoned in an orphanage, in 2009. She was 9 years old when the movie premiered and was invited to the Cannes Film Festival.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Theater

      Broadway’s ‘Maybe Happy Ending’ Asks: Can Robots Fall in Love?

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      “Maybe Happy Ending” had an initial Korean-language production in Seoul in 2016. Here are five things to know about the show.Hue Park was sitting in a Brooklyn coffee shop in the spring of 2014 when “Everyday Robots,” an indie pop ballad by Damon Albarn, floated over the speakers: “We are everyday robots on our phones / In the process of getting home.”What if, Park thought, there were a whole world filled with robots who looked just look humans?The result: a one-act Korean-language musical about a pair of abandoned robots who fall in love in Seoul in 2064. The show, which Park wrote with Will Aronson, a former New York University classmate, found success with its premiere in Seoul in 2016, and five subsequent commercial productions there.The New York Times critic Jesse Green, who saw an English-language production at Atlanta’s Alliance Theater in 2020, called it “charming” and “Broadway-ready.” Now that version will open at Broadway’s Belasco Theater on Nov. 12, starring Darren Criss and Helen J Shen.The story is about two outcast helperbots who meet at a robot retirement home and build a relationship while grappling with their own obsolescence, and Park thinks it is especially relatable after the coronavirus pandemic. “People have become so comfortable staying alone in their rooms and connecting to each other through a screen,” he said in a recent interview in Midtown Manhattan.Shortly after previews began last month, Park, 41, a former K-pop lyricist who wrote the show’s lyrics, and Aronson, 43, who wrote the music — both collaborated on the book — talked about their inspirations and the different approaches to developing the show’s Korean and English versions. In a separate video call, Criss, 37, and Shen, 24, discussed the challenges of playing robots who look like humans.Here are five things to know.Shen and Criss star alongside two other actors in the musical, which is at the Belasco Theater in Manhattan.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      In ‘The Last of the Sea Women,’ Divers Face a Vanishing Way of Life

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      The film captures the arduous work of South Korean haenyeo, who harvest seafood without diving gear, and whose traditions may be ending.In the South Korean province of Jeju lives a group of women who may, at first, sound as if they’re mythical creatures. The haenyeo (“sea women”) dive and swim in the depths of the ocean without any breathing gear, harvesting seafood like conch, urchin and octopus, which they sell to support their families. Often, haenyeo are the main earners in their households. They’ve done this for centuries.That is remarkable enough on its own. Free diving — without breathing apparatus other than your own lungs — is incredibly physically demanding and dangerous. Jellyfish and sharks lurk, and bad weather can pose a hazard, too. Some of the haenyeo dive for two full minutes without coming up for air, all while gathering marine life.But what’s more extraordinary — and what’s explored in “The Last of the Sea Women” (on Apple TV+), directed by Sue Kim — is this astonishing fact: Most of the haenyeo are in their 60s, 70s and 80s. For them, it’s both a point of pride that they’re still doing the work — “men can’t handle this job,” Soon Deok Jang, 72, notes with a grin — and a grave concern.That is because they have been at this a long time. Yet in recent decades, their numbers have dwindled from tens of thousands to about 4,000. Few young women join the community anymore, and the divers worry that their way of life is disappearing. “I feel like the haenyeo culture is melting away,” one says, referring not only their work, but also their camaraderie and empowerment.Kim takes a lightly ethnographic approach, melding an observational eye with conversations with the women. She follows the haenyeo into the sea, hangs out with them as they wait at the crack of dawn for transportation to the water and attends meetings where they discuss how to preserve haenyeo culture.And, as the film shows, there are a few encouraging signs. There’s a school for new haenyeo, though the grueling demands of yearlong training and the work itself mean only about 5 percent of graduates continue on. The film also focuses on Sohee Jin and Jeongmin Woo, who are in their 30s and the youngest by far among the haenyeo. They initially connected over that fact, and now they post videos to YouTube and Instagram to draw attention to their work.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Controversy Over K-pop Band NewJeans

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      The firm Hybe has lost hundreds of millions of dollars in market value because of a feud with the creative force behind the band NewJeans.The video had none of the hallmarks of K-pop. No catchy tune, no snazzy outfits, no slick dance routines. Definitely no stars. It was set in an unremarkable auditorium with plain white tables and a large projector screen.But it included screenshots of chats between two power players in the industry and instantly became the talk of the K-pop world.It was the live broadcast of a two-hour emotional tell-all delivered last month by Min Hee-Jin, the producer of NewJeans, arguably today’s hottest K-pop act. She had called a news conference to dispute accusations of corporate malfeasance by her employer, Hybe, the K-pop colossus behind BTS.The unusually public and hostile feud — which has included allegations of plagiarism, chart rigging and shamanism — has led to hundreds of millions of dollars being wiped off Hybe’s market value. And it has cast a cloud over Hybe’s relationship with a rising star, NewJeans, while its biggest act, BTS, is on hiatus.“It’s about money, it’s about control and also the ownership of an artist,” said Andrew Eungi Kim, referring to NewJeans. A professor at Korea University, Mr. Kim studies the country’s cultural influence, a phenomenon known as hallyu.The members of BTS, who are all serving in South Korea’s military because of mandatory conscription, are not expected to reunite until next year. As some of them have released solo albums, NewJeans has racked up its share of accolades. In the past year it has topped the Billboard 200, played at Lollapalooza and appeared in commercials for Apple and Coca-Cola.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Insooni Breaks Racial Barrier to Become Beloved Singer in South Korea

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      Born to a South Korean mother and a Black American soldier, she rose to a pioneering stardom in a country that has long discriminated against biracial children.When she took the stage to perform at Carnegie Hall in front of 107 Korean War veterans, the singer Kim Insoon was thinking of her father, an American soldier stationed in South Korea during the postwar decades whom she had never met or even seen.“You are my fathers,” she told the soldiers in the audience before singing “Father,” one of her Korean-language hits.“To me, the United States has always been my father’s country,” Ms. Kim said in a recent interview, recalling that 2010 performance. “It was also the first place where I wanted to show how successful I had become — without him and in spite of him.”Ms. Kim, born in 1957, is better known as Insooni in South Korea, where she is a household name. For over four decades, she has won fans across generations with her passionate and powerful singing style and genre-crossing performances. Fathered by a Black American soldier, she also broke the racial barrier in a country deeply prejudiced against biracial people, especially those born to Korean women and African-American G.I.s.Insooni at a concert in Seoul in March.Woohae Cho for The New York TimesHer enduring and pioneering presence in South Korea’s pop scene helped pave the way for future K-pop groups to globalize with multiethnic lineups.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A K-Pop Star’s Lonely Downward Spiral

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      Goo Hara’s life was a struggle from the start. She ended it at 28, isolated and harassed online.The K-pop star looked utterly drained. Her face scrubbed of makeup, Goo Hara, one of South Korea’s most popular musical artists, gazed into the camera during an Instagram livestream from a hotel room in Japan. In a fading voice, she read questions from fans watching from around the world.“You going to work, fighting?” one asked.In halting English, she gave a plaintive answer: “My life is always so fighting.”By the time she climbed into bed at the end of the livestream in November 2019, she had reached a low point after a lifetime of struggle. As a child, she was abandoned by her parents. Her father at one point attempted suicide. After grueling training, she debuted in a K-pop group at 17, early even by the standards of the Korean hit-making machine.With the group, Kara, she found international fame, and Ms. Goo became a regular on Korean television, eventually anchoring her own reality series. But with celebrity came ravenous attacks on social media from a Korean public that is as quick to criticize stars as it is to fawn over them. Following a sordid legal fight with an ex-boyfriend, the harassment only intensified, as commenters criticized her looks, her personality and her sex life.Ms. Goo in 2018, the year before she died by suicide.Choi Soo-Young/Imazins, via Getty ImagesOn Nov. 23, 2019, less than a week after her Instagram appearance, she posted a photo of herself tucked in bed, with the caption “Good night.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Lee Hoyang, Prolific K-Pop Producer and Songwriter, Dies at 40

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      Professionally known as Shinsadong Tiger, he created the upbeat, catchy and danceable musical style that defined K-pop in the early 2010s.Lee Hoyang, a prolific producer and songwriter of South Korean pop music who was professionally known as Shinsadong Tiger and who helped create some of the biggest K-pop hits of the 2010s, died in Seoul on Friday. He was 40.His management agency confirmed his death in a statement. It did not mention the cause of death, but said that a private funeral was being held in Seoul. The agency, TR Entertainment, did not respond to an emailed request for comment. A police detective in Seoul also confirmed Mr. Lee’s death, but would not disclose further details. Mr. Lee was often credited with shaping the musical style that defined K-pop in the early 2010s: catchy, upbeat and repetitive with a strong hook. He produced many commercially successful songs throughout the decade, mostly for young female artists. Among the hits were “Roly-Poly” and “Bo Peep Bo Peep,” both by T-ara; “NoNoNo” by Apink; and “Bubble Pop!” by HyunA.“He created an exciting, funky, beat-driven K-pop style that continues to be repeated over and over again,” said Do Heon Kim, a pop music critic in South Korea. “There is no place where his influence hasn’t been felt.”Mr. Lee was born on June 3, 1983, in Pohang, a city on South Korea’s southeastern coast. With no formal music education, he immersed himself in music starting in middle school, when he played in a band and remixed songs with his friends, he said in an interview in 2011.He debuted as a songwriter in 2004, when he produced a song called “Man and Woman” for the South Korean pop band the Jadu, he said. The song, which had a pulse of Brazilian bossa nova, was released in 2005.Mr. Lee’s career took a downturn in the late 2010s as his music came to be increasingly regarded as repetitive and he was faced with plagiarism accusations, which he denied, Mr. Kim said. The songwriter focused more of his energy on producing and helped form the girl groups EXID, which debuted in 2012, and Tri.be, which debuted in 2021.Jin Yu Young More

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      ‘Cobweb’ Review: A Film Within a Director’s Cinematic Ego Trip

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      Kim Jee-woon toys with the absurdity of filmmaking itself in this story of a director compelled to take his cast and crew captive to shoot one more scene.To be a director is to be a madman of sorts. It’s a rare artist that has the will and belief required to pull together so many forces to create a movie, let alone a good or even great one. In other words, it’s a space only occupied, perhaps, by the delusional or self-involved.“Cobweb,” directed by Kim Jee-woon, mines the comically absurd reality that is filmmaking, at times with bouncy cinematic verve, at others somewhat aimlessly and a little too indulgently.In the film, set in early-1970s South Korea, a director, Kim (Song Kang-ho), desperately struggling to prove he isn’t a sham, has come up with a new ending to fix his current film that he insists will transform it into a subversive masterpiece. Working surreptitiously around his studio’s president and the government censorship agency, he reconvenes his cast and crew, boards them up in a sound stage, and gets to work on his opus. Personalities clash and antics ensue, as the movie set becomes as much of a soap opera as the movie they’re making, whose scenes are cut into “Cobweb” throughout.Even if “Cobweb” often feels like it’s a film that is telling itself its own industry insider joke — poking fun at the competing, wounded egos of directors, actors and studio brass — Kim Jee-woon captures it all with a sleekly choreographed charm that keeps us along for the ride. Until it doesn’t. Toward the second half, the film becomes overlong, losing its narrative thread and including too many scenes of the movie being made. Eventually we feel a little trapped in the sound stage ourselves, as “Cobweb” falls victim, ironically, to its own punchline — becoming a movie that is too obsessed with itself.CobwebNot rated. In Korean, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 15 minutes. Rent or buy on most major platforms. More