We’re back with another Offstage, and today we’re featuring film music producer and composer Jo Yeong-wook (also romanized as Cho Young-wuk). Perhaps his name doesn’t immediately ring a bell, but if you’ve watched any Park Chan-wook films, then you’re definitely familiar with Jo Yeong-wook’s work. These two brilliant creators are as inextricably linked as Ghibli and Joe Hisaishi, Amélie and Yann Tiersen, or Wong Kar-Wai and Shigeru Umebayashi.
Everybody knows that a soundtrack can easily make or break a movie. There are ok soundtracks that won’t be memorable or noteworthy, nor detract from your enjoyment of the movie. Ah, but a great soundtrack will stand out, will enhance the scene, and will pull you into the world of the movie. Just as a bad soundtrack can ruin a scene or distract you from the plot, and diminish your experience, a great soundtrack will echo and resonate the feelings the director intended. You’ve seen movies, you know what I mean.
Early Career
Having a deep love for music, he looked for a way to make a living with music after graduating college. Jo Yeong-wook started off as a music producer at a record company. His first music score was for the 1997 film ‘The Contact‘, where he did the production. Not only was the movie extremely successful in the Korean box-office for that year, but the soundtrack itself had unprecedented commercial success. So his prolific career as a film composer was launched to a great start.
Afterwards he scored quite a few movies, most notably 1999’s ‘Tell Me Something‘, a horror-thriller film that was among early Korean films to find success abroad, and 2000’s ‘Joint Security Area‘. The mystery-thriller was the highest grossing movie at the time, and marked the first collaboration between Jo Yeong-wook and director Park Chan Wook. Having been close friends since before they worked together, they knew their tastes and aesthetics would be a good combination.
‘Oldboy’ and collaborations with Park Chan-Wook
2003 was a landmark year for Jo; He produced the soundtrack for the hit movie ‘The Classic‘, which won him not one, but two awards for ‘Best Music’. The movie, among others, features this epic song, and launched Son Ye Jin’s career (she also won ‘Best new Actress’ for this).
Interestingly this wasn’t even the biggest thing to happen for Jo’s career that year. He also did the music for Park Chan-Wook’s ‘Oldboy‘. Listen to possibly the most popular track on the soundtrack, ‘The Last Waltz’, below:
The entire score is excellent, and it’s one of the things that make this movie a true masterpiece. The now legendary corridor fight scene is an excellent example of a soundtrack ideally complimenting and magnifying the impact of a scene. It’s simple, it’s effective, it’s perfect. Needless to say, this soundtrack won him the Korean Film Award for ‘Best Music’, for the second year in a row (2004).
From that point on, he’s actually gone on to score most of Park Chan-Wook’s films, like ‘Lady Vengeance‘ (2005), ‘Thirst’ (2009), and more recently ‘The handmaiden‘ (2016), but also for his miniseries ‘The little drummer girl‘ (2018). I absolutely love the soundtrack for ‘The Handmaiden’, and I think the critics are in agreement in that it’s one of his best works.
The emotions captured and resonated through these pieces add a whole other dimension to these brilliant films. While very different from each movie to the next, we’d say the music is atmospheric, melodic, and clearly has strong classical influences while incorporating widely different elements each time.
Other notable works
It’s not strange that such a prolific producer and composer as Jo is so linked with one single director; Some of his best work is done on Park Chan-Wook’s films, and their undeniable chemistry is impossible to underestimate. The fact that he’s the most internationally known and acclaimed director he’s worked with is also clearly a factor. However, we already mentioned he’s had a very prolific career so far, and we would me remiss if we didn’t mention some of his other outstanding work.
I admit I have a soft spot for the accordion-infused sad and nostalgic soundtrack of ‘A Dirty Carnival’ (2006). The movie was ok, but the soundtrack absolutely elevated it.
Another one I really enjoyed was ‘Kundo: Age of the rampant’ (2014). It showcases Jo Yeong-wook’s absolute versatility and skill. When you listen to this track from this OST, you can clearly tell he was going for a spaghetti western feeling. Which in itself is a stroke of genius approach – this is a Korean period film about Robin Hood type outlaws. The music once again adds another dimension to the movie, enhancing it and elevating it.
Jo Yeong-Wook
I admire how varied his sound can be – the multiple genres of films he has created the soundtrack for are a testament to that. He’s done melodramas, neo-noir, horror thrillers, and even period films, among other things. Just from the few pieces featured in this article, you can clearly see that. At the same time, there is certainly a quality that ties it all together. Maybe if I was more educated in the technical aspects of music, I might have been able to pinpoint what exactly is that quality that permeates his work. Alas, you’ll have to settle for my vagueness.
He joked in an interview once that unless he really needed the money, he wouldn’t take on a film whose plot he felt no empathy for. I respect that (and ultimately, it shows). After all, it’s the composer’s job to make the audience empathize with the story, with the characters; to convey the emotion and the unspoken thought, to build the tension. It’s no easy feat, and that’s why we remember the great ones.
