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Originally Posted by Staal
I recently became familiar with some of the works of Chan-Wook Park recently. I ordered Three Extremes off amazon and really enjoyed dumplings.
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He actually did the second short film, "Cut," which I thought was phenomenal ("Dumplings" was good, and my favorite of the three was Miike's "The Box").
Glad that you enjoyed Oldboy. It's one of my favorite films of all time and (though Angra will disagree with me :p ) I absolutely believe that it is a horror film. I think that its intensely Gothic tragic themes bring the concept of human "horror" to a fantastic escalated climatic level in a way that I have not seen any other film do. I also think that he has a fantastic sense of humor and creates works of beauty out of pure tragedy.
I feel as though all fans of cinema (not just horror fans) should become familiar with The Vengeance Trilogy. All three movies have vivid characters and are examples of incredible, intelligent story-telling.
If you enjoyed Lady Vengeance and Oldboy, then you should definitely see Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance. I have to warn you - It's not as "extreme" (in the sense of over-the-top heightened violence); it's more of a truly tragic character piece that creates a beautiful dichotomy between two truly tragic figures full of pathos. It definitely has a different tone than Lady and Oldboy; it's a bit slower, and it focuses more on the struggles of the character and less on exciting violent scenes.
That being said, Mr Vengeance was my favorite for a while, though the more I watch Oldboy the more I like it the most. It's hard to tell.
If you like the stylized filmmaking of Park and want to see something more whimsical and fanciful (non-horror - more light-hearted and charming), check out his I'm a Cyborg and that OK. It's not a perfect movie, but it's a fantastic, charming little love story.