Park Chan-wook
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Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
influenced Stoker (2013), The Handmaiden (2016)
Plot Characters Themes
In 2013, he made his English language debut with Stoker, a chilly, Gothic riff on Alfred Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt.
The bad vibes Uncle Charlie emits as his courtship of Evelyn inspires disgust (or is it jealousy?) in India can't help but remind you of Joseph Cotten's Uncle Charlie in Hitchcock's "Shadow of a Doubt."
There are nods to Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt and the beautiful but dysfunctional families of Douglas Sirk's lush melodramas, but Park's usual themes of sex, death and revenge are still very much in evidence and - happily - they have been only slightly toned down.
The screenplay by actor-turned-writer Wentworth Miller (Prison Break) definitely betrays his background in literary studies, as the story’s revelations about a frozen-in-time aristocratic family’s deep dark secrets and still pulsing vein of murderousness feels one part Emily Bronte, one part Tennessee Williams, and one part Bram Stoker (hence the title, we might imagine), although its twisted uncle-niece relationship and use of the name “Uncle Charlie” immediately evokes Alfred Hitchcock’s disturbing Shadow of a Doubt (1943), which turned the platitudes of small-town Americana on its head.
The American debut of kind-to-be-cruel South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook (“Old Boy,” “Lady Vengeance”), based on a script by the actor Wentworth Miller (“Prison Break”) with rewrites by Erin Cressida Wilson (“Secretary”) is a brisk, chilly variation on themes in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Shadow of a Doubt,” but it never finds a convincing shape of its own.
(Since the film has definite ties to Alfred Hitchcock’s 1943 film Shadow of a Doubt, it seems not unlike the name Charles is coincidental.)
Insomuch as the Best Picture-winner Parasite spoke to South Korea’s staggering wealth inequality, No Other Choice speaks to something equally essential…
One especially strange scene, in which Man-su, one of his targets, and the target’s wife wrestle on the floor for a gun, is reminiscent of Parasite in how the working classes are pitted against each other despite their shared struggles.
Unlike, let’s say, the class divide montage in Parasite, No Other Choice isn’t fixated with any neorealist depictions of poverty.
It’s not unlike recent Best Picture winner Parasite, from the filmmaker’s South Korean contemporary Bong Joon-ho.
Similar to Parasite, it asks you to sympathize with the lead character’s desperate plight without feeling like you’re cheering on the bad guy.
The film has been compared to Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite (2019), but No Other Choice is less about poverty and more about the middle classes trying to cling on to their status.
Rebecca (1940)
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
influenced The Handmaiden (2016)
Themes Visuals Characters Plot
You may be reminded of Gothic romances like “Jane Eyre” and “Rebecca,” or the Euro-noir manipulations of “Diabolique” and “Gaslight.”
This time his touchstone of choice is Rebecca, Hitchcock’s foray into lesbian Gothic psychodrama that earned him his only Best Picture Oscar in 1940.
The house in which this labyrinthine psychodrama plays out is a strange and mysterious hybrid, part western gothic mansion (there are shades of both The Haunting and Rebecca in its shadowy facade), part palatial Japanese residence.
That’s the setup and it’s straightforward enough — there’s even a creepy housekeeper (Kim Hae Sook) right out of “Rebecca.”
The plot faintly evokes many Gothic thrillers (chiefly "Rebecca," "Jane Eyre" and "Gaslight") and quite a few examples of film noir as well; Park’s source is Sarah Waters ’ Fingersmith, a 2002 novel set in Dickensian England that was previously made as a 2005 British miniseries.
With shades of “All About Eve” and more than a dash of “Rebecca,” Sookee arrives at the impressive manor, and while never forgetting her status as double agent, begins to fall for her beautiful employer, the Count’s mark Hideko (Kim Min-hee).
Goode’s take on the film’s mysterious antagonist is frighteningly reminiscent of Anthony Perkins’ Norman Bates in Psycho , while Kidman’s turn is blessed with subtlety that makes Evie’s instability all the more engaging.
The plot of Stoker borrows liberally from Alfred Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt, in which a young girl falls under the sway of another mysterious “Uncle Charlie,” and the visuals owe much to Psycho.
Actor Wentworth Miller's ('Prison Break') first produced script pays homage to Hitchcock's Uncle Charlie ("Shadow of a Doubt") with little dabs of "Psycho" (a motel, stuffed birds, reflections in a policeman's Ray Bans, a swinging cellar light, an unharmed fly) and a dollop of "The Bad Seed" for good measure, but the film impresses more as artful craftsmanship than emotionally satisfying thriller.
That they’re further represented musically – particularly via “Duet,” a Philip Glass composition whose on-screen performance by Wasikowska and Goode ranks among the hottest sex-free scenes in recent memory – is a testament to the completeness of Park’s vision, which rivals Alfred Hitchcock’s work in Psycho and Stanley Kubrick’s in The Shining in terms of turning storytelling clichés into something fresh and creative.
There is no doubt about Charlie’s sinister intent as when India glimpses him standing in the distance he looks like Norman Bates from Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960) standing in silhouette next to the hotel.
Park has said he was sorry he didn’t get to direct the recent bio-pic Hitchcock; but Stoker is way Hitchcockier than that staid fiction about the making of Psycho.
Vertigo (1958)
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
influenced Stoker (2013), The Handmaiden (2016)
Themes Visuals
“The Handmaiden” is a visually voluptuous addition to Park’s oeuvre—a fable of deception and imposture that bears comparison to Hitchcock’s “Vertigo,” even if it doesn’t quite match it.
Though Chan-wook’s a self-proclaimed Hitchcock disciple – citing Vertigo as the feature film that inspired him to ditch his art-critic aspirations and direct deranged thrillers – he understands that every affecting Hitch homage needs just enough De Palma to keep things on edge.
It is a known fact that Korean director Park Chan-wook was inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo in his formative years – and that inspiration is on full display in much of Stoker.
Miller has said that Hitchock's film Shadow of a Doubt was his inspiration for the film, which is fitting because Park cites Vertigo as the film that made him want to become a director.
A grisly strangulation explicitly recalls Frenzy; Wasikowka’s wound-up response to it goes a good deal further than Hitch could (even at that late point in his career).
He’s a spectral presence that never achieves full definition, though he is pretty handy when he gets a belt around your neck — not unlike the necktie killer of Hitchcock’s Frenzy.
The Hitchcock allusions don't stop there: India is a taxidermist, like Norman Bates in "Psycho"; and a strangulation that occurs is as ugly as the one in "Frenzy."
An insect motif evokes Blue Velvet, a violent nature doc on a motel TV nods to Wild at Heart, and much of the rest pays homage to Twin Peaks: comical high-school toughs (including a biker teen at a roadhouse), the threat of incest, crossing train tracks to a dangerous woodsy rendezvous, dreamy ceiling-to-floor drapes, and frequent close-ups of saddle shoes, as a signifier of innocence on the cusp of sexual awakening.
An insect motif evokes Blue Velvet, a violent nature doc on a motel TV nods to Wild at Heart, and much of the rest pays homage to Twin Peaks: comical high-school toughs (including a biker teen at a roadhouse), the threat of incest, crossing train tracks to a dangerous woodsy rendezvous, dreamy ceiling-to-floor drapes, and frequent close-ups of saddle shoes, as a signifier of innocence on the cusp of sexual awakening.
Like Steven Soderbergh with this year’s Side Effects, Park plays at hiding the obvious truth via homage (you’ll see snippets of Psycho, Strangers on a Train, and even Vertigo here) while inventing a few dread mechanisms himself.
The American debut of kind-to-be-cruel South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook (“Old Boy,” “Lady Vengeance”), based on a script by the actor Wentworth Miller (“Prison Break”) with rewrites by Erin Cressida Wilson (“Secretary”) is a brisk, chilly variation on themes in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Shadow of a Doubt,” but it never finds a convincing shape of its own.
The script for the film was written by none other than Prison Break and Resident Evil 4 star Wentworth Miller – with some obvious contributions by Secretary writer Erin Cressida Wilson.
The screenplay—written by first-timer Wentworth Miller but worked over by the kinky Erin Cressida Wilson (Secretary, Chloe)—is a sexualized take on Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt (1943).
But for my money, this movie belongs alongside “Secretary,” “Ginger Snaps” and “Thirteen” in the family of deliciously dark female coming-of-age stories.
Basic Instinct (1992)
Directed by Paul Verhoeven
influenced Decision to Leave (2022), The Handmaiden (2016)
Themes Plot Characters
Slyly undermining stereotypes of fall guys and femmes fatales (this is more Bound than Basic Instinct), Park’s film takes great delight in wrong-footing its audience, peeling away layers of mesmerising misdirection with delicious cinematic sleight of hand.
Decision to Leave is Park Chan-wook’s take on an Alfred Hitchcock thriller, primarily Vertigo and The Man Who Knew Too Much, but with some 90s erotic thriller twists to it, in the like of Paul Verhoeven’s Basic Instinct, yet more nuanced.
While this is a far cry from the erotic inclinations of his last film, The Handmaiden (2017), a talented femme fatale’s motivations would suggest the compulsions of something like Basic Instinct (1992) until they seem more inclined to be crimes of the heart.
Forget Vertigo, because at a certain point one may long for a simple pleasure like Paul Verhoeven's Basic Instinct, a formally astonishing rendition of a trashy script that has enough momentum for 10 thrillers, even if its mystery makes no more sense than the one offered here.
Tang Wei is magnificent as the femme fatale, giving the best performance within this archetype since Sharon Stone’s Catherine Tramell in 1992’s Basic Instinct. She plays the character perfectly, at once appearing to be misunderstood, thus perhaps innocent of her husband’s death, but also seeming to have something untrustworthy and manipulative about her personality bubbling just beneath the surface.
The movie wants to be Hitchcockian, but it's the flat-footed Hitchcock of Marnie that Park evokes.
…(a darkly cynical spin on Chaplin’s Modern Times)…
…a comedic social satire thriller that operates in a manner reminiscent of Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times…
The street-level action does resemble many of those MCU shows, an early corridor fight owes a debt to that part of the oldboy network.
The Last Duel shares more DNA with movies like Gone Girl or The Handmaiden than it does with films like Braveheart, Gladiator, or Troy.
…the film follows a Rashomon/The Handmaiden look at a single event, the rape of Marguerite de Carrouges (Comer) by accused attacker Jacques Le Gris (Driver)…
…an exquisite The Handmaiden-like script that shows a series of tragic events told from three different perspectives…
Both the script and the direction continually echo familiar literary and cinematic icons, from the family's name to the Shakespearean family plot to the prowling interloper (see Robert Mitchum in the 1950s classic The Night of the Hunter).
Its intertwining schemes and bungled cons recall Hitchcock's Dial M for Murder; its first half, with a brooding lower class heroine shipping off to a country manor has shades of Jane Eyre.
Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)
Directed by Robert Hamer
influenced No Other Choice (2025)
Themes Plot
To that end, it recalls the classic 1949 Ealing comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets (although the murders there were admittedly more broadly comedic).
If you’ve seen Robert Hamer’s seminal Ealing comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets, this might sound familiar. That centres around an obscure member of a noble dynasty who must kill the eight members ahead of him in the line of succession to inherit his fortune.
Actor Wentworth Miller's ('Prison Break') first produced script pays homage to Hitchcock's Uncle Charlie ("Shadow of a Doubt") with little dabs of "Psycho" (a motel, stuffed birds, reflections in a policeman's Ray Bans, a swinging cellar light, an unharmed fly) and a dollop of "The Bad Seed" for good measure, but the film impresses more as artful craftsmanship than emotionally satisfying thriller.
Park’s skills for surreal subjectivity and the mischievously weird certainly don’t hurt, but they can’t quite banish Stoker’s narrative speed bumps and draughts of cold air as the film bluntly denotes the compulsive correspondence of orgasm and murder, and nastiness by inheritance (evoking The Bad Seed).
The Villainess (2017)
Directed by Jung Byung-gil
influenced by Oldboy (2003), Thirst (2009), Lady Vengeance (2005)
Visuals Themes
Think Oldboy‘s hallway scene from the first-person perspective of Hardcore Henry spilling over through a non-descript doorway into a wide-open setting for a one-on-twenty bloodbath a la Kill Bill‘s House of Blue Leaves sequence.
The Villainess gets off to an absolutely blistering start with a staggering shoot-em-up and slash-em-up sequence, that plays like the Oldboy hallway scene by way of Hardcore Henry , as we watch Ok-bin Kim’s assassin Sook-hee rack up a body count of around 40 in a hallway, a flight of stairs and in a gym, through her point of view.
The Villainess opens up utilizing a first-person POV as we watch an unseen assailant fileting, stabbing, shooting, and hacking their way through dozens of attackers awaiting them down a long corridor, undoubtedly a nod to a similar frenetic fight scene from Oldboy, in what’s meant to feel like a one-take sequence (I was only able to identify one cut, but that one was so well-hidden, there may be more).
Imagine the hallway fight from “Oldboy,” but three times as long and incalculably more violent (eek, another reference).
All that visual gimmickry aside, the sequence may remind you of the ax-in-the-hallway fight scene from Park Chan-wook’s notorious 2004 cult hit, “Oldboy,” which, I suppose, makes this movie “Oldgirl.”
Ever since Park Chan-Wook's bloody classic Oldboy, Korea has been on the literal cutting of the revenge movie genre.