In 2017, Metacritic ranked Bong #13 on its list of the 25 best film directors of the 21st century. His films are known for their uncomfortable subject matter, black humor and sudden mood shifts.\n', '

Bong Joon Ho was born in Daegu in 1969 and decided to become a filmmaker while in middle school. Bong Joon Ho had a highly intellectual upbringing; his father, Bong Sang Gyun, is a graphic designer and his maternal grandfather, Park Tae Won was a noted author, famous for A Day in the Life of Novelist Gubo. His older brother, Joon Soo, is an English literature professor now teaching in Seoul National University, and his older sister, Jee Hee, is a fashion designer. Despite his passion for film, he did not enroll for a theater major in university due to his parent\'s disagreement. He majored in sociology in Yonsei University in the late 1980s and was a member of the film club there. He was then a fan of Edward Yang, Hou Hsiao-hsien and Shohei Imamura.\n', '

In the early 1990s, he completed a two-year program at the Korean Academy of Film Arts. While there, he made many 16mm short films. His graduation films Memory Within the Frame and Incoherence were invited to screen at the Vancouver and Hong Kong international film festivals. He also collaborated on several works with his classmates — most notably as cinematographer on the highly acclaimed short 2001 Imagine, directed by his friend Jang Joon-hwan. Aside from cinematography on Hur Jae-young\'s short A Hat, Bong was also lighting director on an early short Sounds From Heaven and Earth by Choi Equan, and The Love of a Grape Seed.\n', '

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