Tarantino is Park Chan-Wook's fan?

Although I agree that Park Chan-Wook is a genius film writer/director, it seems like he also got very lucky to release Old Boy when Tarantino was the grand jury at Canne film festival because the movie perfectly met Tarantino's taste. (YG)

1. What Tarantino said about Park/Old Boy/asian films' rise

-To paraphrase an old Tarantino statement: to just say that Park knows how to make a good thriller is like saying Michelangelo knows how to paint a ceiling. -- Travis Crawford
(http://www.phillyfests.com/pff/templates/film_details.cfm?id=4012)

-Your film won the Jury Prize at Cannes this year, where the jury president was Quentin Tarantino. What did you discuss with him?
I spoke with Tarantino for two hours, and he said as much in that period as most people would in a whole day. He said too many things for me to remember them all, but I remember he spoke particularly about the scene where the hero says that the right question to ask isn't why I was imprisoned for 15 years, but why I was released after 15 years of imprisonment. And he wondered why he hadn't thought of that while he was watching the film. He spoke about the character of the villain - he'd hated him for the first hour and a half, then when you find out what's happening Tarantino wept with the character, and he couldn't understand why he was weeping and pitying him.
(http://www.jigsawlounge.co.uk/film/parkchanwookinterview.html)

-Tarantino headed the Cannes Jury, did he say anything to you?
We met at the party afterwards, but I don’t remember everything he said because he talks so quickly! I do remember him mentioning that he cried along with the villain and was surprised by his reaction because he’d spent so much of the film hating him. That seemed to me a very open and innocent response.
(http://www.timeout.com/film/news/147.html)

-Tarantino, during a interview with the movie magazine “Variety," in recent days said that it’s about time that Park was at the Cannes festival. He said Park would be one of the most exciting action cinema directors in Cannes. Tarantino said that he has heard from nine different people who have seen the movie “Old Boy” and heard it's more of a gritty film than a commercial film.
(http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200405/200405200032.html)

-At Cannes this summer, it was widely hailed as the most entertaining movie in competition, and Quentin Tarantino's jury awarded it the coveted Grand Jury Prize. Indeed, Tarantino is director Chan-Wook Park's biggest fan, and wasted no time in seeking out Park.

"After the award, at a party, he talked to me for two hours," says Park, a mild-mannered, softly spoken man of 41. "It was very hard for me; I felt as if he remembered every single scene and every single line in the film, and he offered every possible comment about them!"

(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2004/10/01/bfoldboy01.xml&sSheet=/arts/2004/10/01/ixartleft.html)

-From Park Chan-Wook's interview with a Korean press:

유지태의 회상 신에서 댐에서 누나의 손을 놓는 장면을 보면서 울었다고 하더라.
He[Tarantino] said he wept when Woojin recalls releasing his sister's hand on the bridge.

유지태가 영화 속에서 ‘배드 가이’(Bad Guy)라고 생각하면서도 왜 울음이 나오는지 스스로 되물었다고 했다”고 말했다.
He kept asking himself why he wept although he thought Woojin was a bad guy.

타란티노 감독은 영화 속에서 오대수(최민식)와 미도(강혜정)가 첫 만남을 갖는 신에 이어 곧바로 한 집에 있는 장면을 예로 들면서 “할리우드에서나 자주 보는 기법이어서 이건 아니다 싶었는데,막판 영화의 암시라는 것을 알게 된 후에야 이해했다”고 말했다고 한다.
Tarantino mentioned as an example the scene where Daesoo and Mido are seen in an apartment together right after the scene where they first meet. He said he didn't like it because it's a technique often used in Hollywood movies. But later he realized it foreshadowed the ending, he said.
(http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=tarantino+park++%22painting+ceiling%22)

-Asked if the strong showing of Asian films at the festival reflected a “flavor of the month” trend, Tarantino said: “You’re belittling a very substantial movement (that is creating) some of the most interesting films in the world.”
(http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5052708/)

2. Tarantino's dominant presence at Cannes film festival

-The Tarantino effect: This year's Cannes film festival opens tonight with one man's fingerprints all over it.
(http://film.guardian.co.uk/cannes2004/story/0,14498,1214764,00.html)

-Like God's, Tarantino's presence was felt in all corners. Park Chan-Wook's enjoyably hyperbolic revenge picture Old Boy, which won the Grand Prix (the second highest award), was surely put in competition only because the programmers knew this action movie would be to Tarantino's taste. Almost literally: In Old Boy's most memorably cool scene, the great Korean star Choi Min-Sik eats an octopus - alive.
(http://www.bigomagazine.com/features04/JPcannes.html)

3. Interesting comparison between Old Boy, Kill Bill and Fight Club

-Blood Feud, Oldboy meets Kill Bill by Michael Joshua Rowin
http://www.reverseshot.com/summer05/oldboykill.html