One of the most celebrated filmmakers of South Korean Cinema, Park Chan-Wook, is back as a director, set to deliver another masterpiece of his career. Park Chan-wook recently announced his next project, titled The Ax. It has also been reported by Korean outlets that Park will be reuniting with actor Lee Byung-hun. The director-actor duo previously worked together on 2000’s Joint Security Area, which marked Park’s first major critically and commercially successful film. Moreover, the project will also be joined by renowned South Korean actress Son Ye-jin.Â
What can be expected from Park Chan-Wook’s upcoming film The Ax?
Park Chan-Wook is a visionary auteur who primarily directs films in the thriller and psychological thriller genres. With time, his films have gained notoriety for their cinematography and framing, black humor, and often brutal subject matter. His notable directorial works include films like Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002), Oldboy (2003), and Lady Vengeance (2005).Â
For his 2022 film Decision to Leave, Park won Best Director at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival. The director has never shied away from expanding his directorial territory, as he ventured into the world of American television with the forthcoming Max series The Sympathizer, which is based on Viet Thanh Nguyen’s 2015 novel of the same name.Â
Park’s upcoming project, The Ax, is also an adaptation of Donald E. Westlake’s 1997 novel of the same name. The filmmaker has been working on this project since the early 2010s. Adhering to his genre, Park’s upcoming film is a black comedy thriller that follows a chemist who loses his job to outsourcing. Two years later and still jobless, he hits on a solution: to genuinely eliminate his competition. The synopsis of the film reads:Â
“Burke Devore is a middle-aged manager at a paper company when the cost-cutting ax falls, and he is laid off. Eighteen months later and still unemployed, he puts a new spin on his job search — with agonizing care, Devore finds the seven men in the surrounding area who could take the job that rightfully should be his and systematically kills them. Transforming himself from mild-mannered middle manager to ruthless murderer, he discovers skills he never knew he had — and that comes to him far too easily.”
Filming for the upcoming project will commence in the latter half of this year. Since it is set to last around the autumn season, the film’s release can be expected sometime around late 2025, or it may be in early 2026.Â
