FOUR GONGS FOR BONG!

A South Korean movie has made history by winning the best picture Oscar – and its director, Bong Joon-ho, is ecstatic

- JANE VORSTER

THERE were so many highlights at this year’s Academy Awards – Brad Pitt winning his first Oscar for acting, Laura Dern’s emotional speech as she bagged best supporting actress, Martin Scorsese nodding off during Eminem’s performance . . . But it was a man who only recently burst onto the mainstream scene who upstaged them all.

The expression on director Bong Joonho’s face as he scooped not one but four Oscars, including the big one for best picture, was priceless.

“I want someone to look at me like Bong Joon-ho looks at his Oscar,” a film buff-joked on Twitter.

The South Korean director had good reason to look astonished. Before the event even he had to admit that Parasite, his dark anti-capitalist satire with a cast unknown to American audiences, was a long shot to win.

But as the low-key arthouse movie reeled in one award after the other, leaving blockbuster offerings from the likes of Scorsese, Sam Mendes and Quentin Tarantino in the dust, Bong (50) looked like a kid in a candy store.

With Oscars for best international feature film, best original screenplay and best director, there could be little doubt the night belonged to him. But the biggest triumph came right at the end of the ceremony when his movie won best picture – and with that history was made.

It’s taken 92 years but finally for the first time a non-English-language film has won what’s considered to be the highest accolade in the movie business. To date only 11 foreign movies have been nominated in this category, including the Italian war drama Life Is Beautiful (1997), but Parasite, which is almost entirely in Korean, is the first to have finally cracked the language barrier.