There is a scene in Bong Joon Ho’s “Parasite” where a family of rogue heroes escape from the mansion where they work to their slum a few floors below. Along with this, heavy rain washes muddy rivers full of hand luggage and garbage.

In the end, all this fuss ends in his modest basement, where the daughter, stoically accepting reality, plays with a mobile phone over an overflowing toilet bowl. Sharp social commentary, deep tragedy, surrealism, all rolled into one, in other words, great contemporary cinema that fuses two different traditions into what is arguably the best variant of the seventh art seen today: Korean cinema.

At the Oscars, where “Parasite” won four gold statuettes, Jun Ho spoke about the influence of Scorsese and Tarantino’s cinema on him. As with almost all manifestations of modern Korean culture, the American grafting on an Asian tree produces the most interesting results. Around this time last year, the whole planet was in the craze for playing squid. The shocking Netflix series has captivated audiences by blending reality with good old-fashioned carnage straight out of Japan’s Battle Royale. Even Americans, who are usually allergic to subtitles, recorded the highest viewing rates on the platform, as what they saw was quite familiar and at the same time taken from a tradition that they rarely – and ironically – enjoy in their own cinema.

Of course, speaking of modern Korean creators, one cannot fail to mention the host Park Chang Wook. From the vengeful elegy of “Oldboy” to the blood-soaked love passion of “Thirst,” the violence here is organic, not just an element of action or a cheap fetish. And in his latest film, Decision to Escape, which we recently saw in Greek cinemas (now available on the Cinobo platform), the ferocity is largely replaced by a dark sense of inevitability, which also leads us to the latest masterpiece film. scene.

Even more subtle is the tragedy in the cinema of Lee Chang-Dong, another prominent representative of Korean cinema. Films like Poetry or the recent Burning take the time to prepare the viewer, while they don’t hesitate – in the case of the latter – to shift from low-key dramas to tumultuous suspense thrillers to reach the climax of their action. plot. This change in speed, in addition to being fashionable, also makes the usually longer length of these films more…painless.

Of course, from all of the above, one can draw a general conclusion: Koreans do not shoot pure comedies, on the contrary, they have a great weakness for ancient tragedy and use its forms at every opportunity.

On the other hand, in almost all the works we have mentioned there is unexpected and useful humor, usually black, but ingenious, which is so lacking in modern American and European cinema. Whether it’s an atmospheric crime thriller like Bong Jung-ho’s “Memories of Murder” or… zombie adventures like Yong Sang-ho’s delightful “Living Dead Express”, Koreans use laughter as a decompression valve while at the same time distancing themselves from their own life. otherwise dark stories.