South Korean Director Park Chul-soo Dies in Car Accident

SEOUL -- Director Park Chul-soo, the South Korean auteur known for sexually explicit films like last year’s B.E.D., died following a car accident Tuesday. He was 64.

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The filmmaker was crossing a street in the city of Yongin early Tuesday morning when he was hit by a man driving under the influence, according to police.

Park’s death follows road accidents that killed two international filmmakers last year. Legendary Japanese director Koji Wakamatsu was struck by a car in October, and Greece's Theo Angelopoulos was killed by a motorcycle nine months earlier.

After debuting with the 1978 melodrama Captain of the Alley, Park became one of the most active filmmakers in Korean cinema in the 1980s and '90s. His films, including the 1996 funeral comedy Farewell My Darling, received critical acclaim overseas and on the festival circuit.

After a prolonged absence from the industry, he returned to directing in the early 2000s with controversial works, most notably Green Chair (2003), which was inspired by the real-life affair between a high school boy and a woman in her 30s.

More recently, he stirred things up at the Busan Film Festival in 2011 with Red Vacance Black Wedding -- when the film’s lead actress Oh In-hye stepped onto the red carpet in a revealing red dress -- and then again last year with B.E.D.

News of his death shocked not only industry folks but also the public. Park was working on a new movie called Love Conceptually. Fellow filmmaker Jang Jin expressed his condolences via Twitter, saying, “my heart is growing stiff.”