Park Chan-Wook's Next Movie, 'Decision To Leave,' Starts Shooting This Month

Park Chan-wook is getting started on his first feature film in four years. The celebrated Korean auteur behind Oldboy and The Handmaiden is starting production on his next film, Decision to Leave, which is set to star Park Hye-il (The Host) as a detective who begins to suspect and fall for the widow of a murder victim (Tang Wei, Lust, Caution).Variety reports that Park Chan-wook is due to start filming Decision to Leave later this month. Produced by Moho Film and backed by CJ Entertainment, Decision to Leave is a Korean language drama with a bit of an international cast, led by Chinese actress Tang Wei of Lust, Caution fame, and longtime Bong Joon-ho collaborator Park Hye-il (The Host, Memories of Murder). Other cast members include Lee Jung-hyun, Go Kyung-pyo, and Park Yong-woo.

The film is co-written by Park and frequent collaborator Jeong Seo-kyeong, with whom the filmmaker had previously partnered with for his 2006 rom-com I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK, the 2009 horror adaptation Thirst, and the acclaimed erotic thriller The Handmaiden, which played in competition at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival. Decision to Leave will let the pair explore yet another genre, that of the noir mystery. Here is the logline for Decision to Leave:

The story involves a diligent and serious detective (Park Hye-il) who is investigating a possible murder case in the mountainous countryside. He begins to suspect the man's widow (Tang), whom he also develops romantic feelings for.

Decision to Leave sounds like a noir in the vein of Alfred Hitchcock, which is intriguing territory for an envelope-pushing director like Park. The film comes four years after Park's last feature film The Handmaiden, which made /Film's best of the decade list, and two years after he made his foray into English-language TV with the John Le Carré adaptation for AMC/BBC, The Little Drummer Girl, starring Florence Pugh and Alexander Skarsgård.

Park remains one of the most exciting Korean auteurs, with his brutal, bone-breaking Vengeance Trilogy setting the stage for Korean film to explode on a global scale. With his fellow Korean Wave filmmaker and friend Bong Joon-ho recently taking home a historic Oscar for Parasite, it's only a matter of time before Park is back in the awards conversation in the U.S. and becomes the household name he deserves to be, especially after his electrifying erotic drama The Handmaiden was unfairly snubbed by the Academy four years ago.