Bong Joon Ho and the Loser-Hero

Bong Joon Ho films operate in two modes: intense and violent dramas, or ambitious and unsubtle genre films — both engage with themes of class, exploitation and anti-establishment. His characterization of  those in power render idiotic caricatures, with a suggestion of Disney villainy, as they put his heroes through the wringer. These heroes, specifically the men, are not rendered as aspirational or even cool: conversely, Bong’s interest in working class characters translates to an interest in people that have been branded as a loser by larger society. Aesthetically, as recycled trends are constantly vomited back out to us, the concept of presenting like a societal outcast – thin framed glasses, long sleeve shirts under band tees, baggy jeans, a lovechild of both the 90s grunge era and Andy Samberg’s mid-2000s – can be seen as a form of cool that men turn to stylistically. However, Bong’s admiration for the lovable loser isn’t rooted in any aesthetic ideals, but in an innate faith in the underdog and an interest in subverting what a traditional hero signifies to a genre piece.

Robert Pattinson, who may have started his career as one of the great Tumblr heartthrobs, an anti-loser of sorts (2008’s Twilight does not feel like it came out just a year after 2007’s Superbad, for example), has delightfully weaved the tapestry of his recent career with as many strange characters he can get away with whilst retaining the image of a leading man, subverting his shimmery vampire beginnings. It can be claimed, though, that Pattinson also operates in two modes: heartthrob and loser. His emo Bruce Wayne in The Batman was Pattinson dipping his toe back into something much more like Twilight. 

The titular Mickey of Bong Joon Ho’s Mickey 17 is no exception to the loser mode that Pattinson seems to take a larger enjoyment in, pivoting in his post-Twilight career towards less glamorous roles in indie films such as Good Time and The Lighthouse. In this film based in 2054, Mickey Barnes is on the run from a loan shark and finds himself signing up as crew for a spaceship that is on a mission to colonise the planet Niflheim – signing up to be what they refer to as an “expendable,” without reading the paperwork. He is used to develop vaccines and given lethal assignments, because every time he dies, he’ll be “reprinted” again with restored memories of the previous Mickeys. Trouble arisesas Mickey 17 doesn’t die as he was supposed to, and he and Mickey 18 proceed to coexist. 

Despite Mickey’s agony and treacherous fate, he finds love with the alluring Nasha, played by Naomi Ackie, who stays by his side for each reprinting. Their relationship amounts to Bong’s first significant on-screen romance and love story – is films have previously focused on familial relationships and intimacy, whereas in Mickey 17, the joys of love and sex themselves seem to be the reward of the titular character’s sorrow and grief, the only ease Mickey is allowed in his position. Bong bakes a relationship story in the middle of this sci-fi conceit, parallel to the way in which The Host, Parasite and Mother all focus on what you’d do for your family. The possessiveness and protectiveness that Mickey and Nasha have towards each other in the film ties the other aspects of the story together, expressing that the human condition is best displayed in concert with love. That potential of kindness from a living creature is also mirrored back to these characters when they come in contact with the native lifeform of Niflheim, referred to as ‘Creepers,’ who display a kindness towards Mickey by letting him live despite the colonialism they are attempting to commit on the creatures’ home planet. 

Similarly, The Host includes a rampant monster that’s introduced to us early on in the film, though this one is created out of human carelessness and not only a victim of it. Bong’s third feature concerns itself with a monster that is created through toxic waste poured down the Han River in Seoul under the order of an American pathologist, a blatant nod towards America’s obdurate actions towards Korean locals. We are introduced to Park Gang-du (Song Kang-ho,a frequent Bong collaborator) as he sleeps on the job at his father’s snack bar, presented with unkempt hair bleached with  dark roots showing – indicating a lack of care or possibility of care for himself. In The Host, Bong purposefully defies the convention that a sci-fi production needs an intelligent scientist or action hero at its heart by centering the film around a dysfunctional, realistic, and poverty-stricken family. Similarly to the Park Gang-du character, we’re introduced to his younger brother Nam-il (Park Hae-il), with a shot of a soju bottle in his hand as he treads towards his mourning family, who are convinced that Gang-du’s daughter Hyun-seo has been killed by the monster. His alcoholism signifies a lack of hope for Nam-il, a former political activist who now finds himself downtrodden and miserable despite his previous optimisms. The bitterness between the brothers erupts into physical fights, as Gang-du’s daughter gets kidnapped by the monster, representing the difference between a loser who seems to keep fighting clumsily and one who is presented to us as if he has given up. 

In contrast, their sister, Nam-joo (Bae Donna), an Olympic archer, displays an intelligence and competence that her brothers lack. We see her using her archery skills on the monster, looking incredibly valiant in comparison to her eldest brother. Nam-joo’s evident coolness –though she is in the same boat as her brothers and only wins a bronze medal for her archery – is representative of the filmmaker’s lack of interest in dominant and conventional masculine heroes. These films hold a core interest in pairing intelligent yet unlucky women with slacker men that appear useless in comparison, creating a space for both pathos and farce to dance together on screen. 

In Mother, Bong Joon Ho breaks his own archetypes by giving the male loser character, Yoon Do-joon, a secondary role and bringing his morality into question. The film involves an unnamed widow played by Kim Hye-ja – who Bong already had in mind when writing the screenplay due to her playing warm and motherly roles in the past – who lives alone with her intellectually disabled son,obsessively protective of him as she tries to clear his name when he is charged with murder. The son character is played by actor Won Bin, who was, similarly to Robert Pattinson, trying to break out of the heartthrob box he was put in. Bong’s own character conventions, previously displayed through the lovable family of duds in The Host or even later in Parasite, are shattered – this character isn’t displayed as a hero at all. Do-Joon is presented as someone who has been coddled and taught that he should defend himself from all ridicule, by any means. The titular matriarch, in contrast to her son and the police (similarly incompetent to the police in Memories of Murder), is incredibly resourceful and skilled throughout the narrative. Where his other films thrive under tonal shifts, Mother’s priority is to keep you  on edge and uncomfortable, leaving little space for you to laugh at the situation as your mind is decorated by Kim Hye Ja’s concerned expression.

Bong’s interest for the dysfunctional heroes, and more complicated characters like Do-joon that can’t be as easily categorised, stems from a desire to disrupt:he’s interested in making the loser the existential hero of his pictures. Moreover, he enjoys throwing them into strange differing situations that will lead to their identity as a loser to end through tragedy or through rising out of their societal and psychological position. Mickey Barnes is liberated and put at ease through love, one of Bong’s clearest happy endings. At the end of The Host, Gang Du has experienced great loss due to the tragic events of the film but is presented to us in the future with new black hair, implying a personal growth and rise out of his situation, though he is still at the snack bar. In Mother, the titular mother has succeeded but has truly realised her wrongdoing and is relieving herself of guilt with acupuncture that erases her memory, proceeding to dance with a group of other mothers, implying a freedom that is intertwined with guilt. Bittersweetness is representative of humanity and thrums through as moments of reflection in this filmography,  and Bong’s characters are left with a kaleidoscope of memories and sensations.