Bong Joon-ho has won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes film festival for his black comic thriller Parasite.
The South Korean director is best known for previous films Okja and Snowpiercer, and earned rave reviews for his new film, which is about a poor family who insinuate themselves as servants into a much richer one. The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw described it as “a luxuriously watchable and satirical suspense drama [that] runs as purringly smooth as the Mercedes driven by the lead character”.
Bong is the first Korean director to have won the top award at Cannes, after last appearing in competition with Okja in 2017. He is the second Asian winner in successive years, after Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda triumphed in 2018 with Shoplifters.