Film

“I Will Drink Till Next Morning”: Bong Joon-Ho Just Won The Best Director Oscar For ‘Parasite’

"If the Academy allows, I would like to get a Texas chainsaw and split the Oscar trophy into five and share it with all of you," Director Bong said.

by Joseph Earp  10 February 2020
Bong Joon-Ho wins Best Director Oscar, delivers speech

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Bong Joon-Ho has surprised pundits, winning the Oscar for Best Director over stiff competition from Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino and 1917‘s Sam Mendes

Director Bong’s Parasite has been amassing awards all evening. The film winning an Oscar for Best International Film was no surprise, but it picking up Original Screenplay was something of a shock — that one seemed like a lock for Tarantino and his work on Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood.

Same goes for the Best Director win. Many people expected that Mendes’ complicated and technical work on 1917, a two-shot war film, would be the one that made the most sense to the Academy. But it was Bong who walked away with the gong.

That was particularly exciting given that it provided another opportunity for the South Korean filmmaker to deliver a speech, his third of the night. And the speech, when it came, was just beautiful.

First, the filmmaker used his time in the spotlight to pay homage to fellow nominee Scorsese, who claimed inspired him to get into filmmaking in the first place. Then, he paid his dues to Tarantino, the man who used his public platform to get Bong’s films shown and supported in the West.

“If the Academy allows, I would like to get a Texas chainsaw and split the Oscar trophy into five and share it with all of you,” director Bong Joon-Ho said.

And then, the sucker punch — one helluva final line.

“I will drink until next morning, thank you.”

Watch some of the speech here: