Bong Joon Ho, the best director of the 2020 Oscar film "Parasite", was blacklisted by the former Korean presidential government Park Geun-hye.

Song Kang-ho, one of the main actors of "Parasite" and the film producer Miky Lee, and more than 9,000 other Korean artists in 2015 were also blacklisted. The government of Park Geun-hye said they were too liberal to criticize the government heavily.

However, director Bong, actor Song and Ms. Lee brought great pride to Korea. "Parasite" made history when it became the first non-English-speaking film to be awarded an Academy Award by the American Academy of Motion Picture for its best film at the same time, and received three other victories, including best director for Bong.

"Parasite" is a story about the wealthy Park family and the poor Kim family, which resonated right after its debut last year. Thanks to a clever mix of humor, satire and violence, the film portrays one of Korea's biggest socio-political issues, the income inequality and the despair that follows, especially especially among young people.

According to Washington Post commentator S. Nathan Park, Korean cinema is closely connected with the country's historical flow, from military dictatorship to flourishing liberal democracy.

Under the former president Chun Doo-hwan, the artworks were strictly censored. Chun's departure from leadership in 1987 marked the "dawn" of democracy in Korea, leading to a breakthrough in popular culture. The wave of freedom led to the rise of all cultural trends, including Kpop, television shows and movies, attracting the attention of the world.

In 1998, the late South Korean President Kim Dae-jung emphasized the importance of soft power, aiming to spend at least 1% of the national budget to support art and cultural products, on the principle of " support but do not interfere ".

This is the period when director Bong started to build his career, while also seeing the appearance of many other Korean movie masters such as Park Chan-wook, film director "Old boy" and Lee Chang-dong, director. "Burning".

Yonsei University, the school Bong attended, is one of the centers of the Korean democracy movement. He used to show a sharp and satirical view of injustice in society through caricatures of the school newspaper.

As a director, Bong constantly challenges himself by recreating various forms of power structures. His breakthrough was the 2003 film "Memories of Murder," a fascinating story about the mass murders and incompetence of the government.

The 51-year-old director went on to make headlines in 2006 with the movie "The Host", about a monster created after a US military researcher asked a Korean assistant dumping chemicals down the drain leading to the Han River, raising real doubts about the US military presence in South Korea.

However, Bong's career was threatened in 2010, after South Korea elected two conservative presidents, Lee Myung-bak, former CEO of Hyundai Group and Park Geun-hye, the son. Park Chung-hee's daughter, the late president who has been criticized as an authoritarian leader.

Mr. Lee and Mrs. Park have reversed the popular culture principle that Kim Dae-jung set, using the power of government to intervene in the field. In an effort to "balance cultural power," Lee's administration compiled a detailed list of celebrities who tend to be left to pressure, preventing the public from supporting them.

The Park government subsequently expanded the blacklist significantly, limiting the number of celebrities to nearly 10,000. According to internal documents, "Memories of Murder" was criticized for "making a negative impression on the police by describing them as corrupt, incompetent". Meanwhile, "The Host highlights anti-Americanism and the impotence of the government."

Song Kang-ho recalls that at the time, he suddenly received no film offer after joining "The Attorney," a 2013 biopic about the life of the late pro-democracy Roh. Moo-hyun.

Miky Lee's company is the producer of "The Attorney" and a number of other films that the Park administration deems too free, so Ms. Lee is under pressure from the government. Director Bong once called being blacklisted as a painful "nightmare".

If that list persists, chances are that "Parasite" will never be born. Fortunately, the list leaked in 2016, becoming one of the turning points that led to protests that deposed Ms. Park.

However, even after Mrs. Park was impeached and deposed, aversion to director Bong from conservative Koreans continued, as Kim Moon-soo, former governor of Gyeonggi Province, pointed to harsh excerpts of the content of "Parasite".

In contrast, the current Korean government actively welcomed the film. In a message congratulating the achievements of "Parasite" at the Oscars, President Moon Jae-in rated the film "stirring the world's heart with a very Korean story".

Commentator Park said that "Parasite" proved important facts about politics and art. It is a free society that, without hesitation to consider its own mistakes, is a key element to creating a masterpiece.