In October last year, director Bong Joon Ho said that the Oscars were “not an international film festival. They’re very local”. But now the South Korean director finds himself a four-time Oscar winner with Parasite, including for Best Picture, the first time a foreign language film has won the award.
Joon Ho’s Parasite was slated to do well at this year’s Oscars, but few predicted its dominance as it sweeped up three other major awards including Best International Feature Film, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Director.
“Thank you, it’s an unbelievable night, It’s very hard to believe,” Joon Ho said after picking up the final and most coveted award of the evening. He added: “I feel like I’ll wake up to find this all a dream, it all feels very surreal. Thank you.”
When collecting the Best Director gong earlier in the evening, Joon Ho thanked his fellow nominees and added that it was an honor to be up for the same award as Martin Scorsese, whose films he said he studied in school. He then pointed to Quentin Tarantino, whose sour-faced reaction to Parasite’s recent BAFTA win went viral, and said: “Quentin, I love you.”
The history maker added: “I’d like to get a Texas chainsaw to split the Oscar into five and share it with all of you. Thank you I will drink until next morning.”