In Korean films there is only really a strong tradition of melodramas.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
The Asian culture has to be a part of what we see on TV and in movies.
Obviously, I've made several films in Korea, so I'm very well accustomed and acclimated to Korean filmmaking.
A lot of people are very interested that a Korean director has made a western. But when I look at the reactions of the audience, I realise the points at which people laugh are the same for a Korean audience and an international audience.
I love how 'melodrama' is a denigrated term - a lower-class citizen to other genres. And yet that's what life is, man.
Melodrama and melodramatic are not the same thing, and often people make the mistake of confusing the two.
Melodrama is one of the most stunning art forms. These are stories where the emotions are big, and the situations are big, and the artists believe in the situation dramatically. There's no irony or distance.
If I had to say the secret recipe for acting melodrama, I think it comes from myself in real life. I have a belief that when I do melo scenes, I try to make them less cheesy.
Korean films have always been distributed to international audiences as arthouse films.
So slowly in my mind formed the idea of melodrama, a form I found to perfection in American pictures. They were naive, they were that something completely different. They were completely Art-less.
Korean cinema is very improvisational, and there is a unique power that stems from this.