South Koreans reacted with rare collective joy Monday after director Bong Joon Ho and his movie Parasite won Oscars for best picture and three other categories, good news that came as their country struggles to cope with a new virus from China and its economic fallout.
The movie’s wins made history in both the Hollywood and South Korean film industries. The class satire is the first non-English-language film to win best picture in the 92-year history of the Academy Awards, and is the first South Korean movie to ever win an Oscar.
“Can you believe that Parasite won the Academy best picture?” South Korea’s biggest newspaper, Chosun Ilbo, said in a headline. “It rewrote the Academy’s 92-year-old history.”
South Korean social media were overwhelmed with congratulatory messages. Bong, Parasite and other Oscar-related news also dominated search terms throughout Monday at major internet portal sites, which had been preoccupied with the outbreak of a virus in China that has killed more than 900 people and sickened tens of thousands of others, mainly in China.
“It’s happy news, like welcome rain, to the Republic of Korea, which is depressed, stagnant and thrown into despair due to Wuhan pneumonia,” the main opposition Liberty Korea Party said in a statement. Wuhan is the Chinese city at the center of the outbreak.
President Moon Jae-in and his advisers began a regularly scheduled meeting by clapping their hands to celebrate Bong’s wins. Moon later tweeted that he is proud of Bong and his staff and “particularly grateful to them for giving courage and pride to our people who are overcoming difficulties.”