Park joined the Yallasung Film Group as a student of Fine Arts at Seoul National University.
Names such as Park Kwang-su, Chung Ji-young, Kim Hong-joon, and a number of other directors, producers and film critics were exposed to a world of international cinema and eventually branched off in order to create films and documentaries that showed Korean culture and history through the viewpoint of the people, predominantly the working class.
The New Korean Wave was made possible by two developments: a partial relaxation of censorship and the second change in film policy.
Without these policy changes, Park Kwang-Su would not have been able to make such films such as Chilsu and Mansu, which was a catalyst to the wave of New Korean Cinema.
“While all of Park's movies are firmly rooted in the political history of his country, he belongs to a group of international filmmakers whose work transcends their specific political situations to address, with great artistry, more universal issues of human freedom.”