For nearly as long as there have been American movies there have been foreign directors making them, in a symbiotic arrangement that gives the visitors freedom, cash or exposure and the American film industry cachet and infusions of creativity. In Hollywood's early years Europeans classed up the joint, particularly those from the center of the continent: von Stroheim, Lubitsch, Lang, Zinnemann. More recent waves of talent have washed in from Australia, Hong Kong and Latin America.

Now a new group is arriving on American screens: the South Koreans, representing a celebrated national cinema that has not yet had much crossover with Hollywood. The directors Park Chan-wook, Kim Ji-woon and Bong Joon-ho had been approached by American producers over the years. Now each one's first English-language production has been or is scheduled to be released this year.

"I thought it was such a coincidence," said Mr. Park, director of "Stoker," a dark coming-of-age story starring Mia Wasikowska, Matthew Goode and Nicole Kidman. "It probably took around the same amount of time for the interest from the American industry to turn into confidence in these three directors to be able to helm U.S. productions, and it would have probably taken an equal amount of time for all three directors to ponder such a proposition."

"Stoker," which opened March 1 in the United States and will open globally through August, follows Mr. Kim's "The Last Stand," Arnold Schwarzenegger's comeback vehicle released in the United States in January. Global release is scheduled through May. Mr. Bong's "Snowpiercer," a comic-book-inspired fantasy starring Chris Evans (Captain America of "The Avengers"), is so far scheduled to open in Russia and Denmark in August.

While South Korea's colonization of the world's popular culture through the so-called Korean Wave of soap operas, pop groups and the "Gangnam Style" music video is well established, its films have remained a more specialized taste. Mr. Bong, Mr. Kim and Mr. Park, three of their country's best known and most honored directors, are heroes of the international festival circuit who have all received career retrospectives at New York film societies and art houses. But they have also had strong fan bases in Hollywood because their style and restraint go along with a taste for visceral, often bloody stories in popular categories like horror and crime.

"Stoker," written by the American actor Wentworth Miller (of the TV series "Prison Break"), takes off from the premise of the great Alfred Hitchcock thriller "Shadow of a Doubt." A charismatic relative, called Uncle Charlie in both films, pays a visit and charms his young, bored niece. Charlie is not as nice as he seems of course. In "Stoker" the twist is that the niece's peculiarities may be as pronounced as her uncle's.

Mr. Park has previously cited Hitchcock as a primary inspiration for a body of work that has established him as South Korea's most celebrated director, highlighted by the "revenge trilogy" of "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance," "Oldboy" and "Lady Vengeance." He discounted the connection, though, in his decision to take on "Stoker."

"I didn't choose to do it because it had a connection to Hitchcock but despite those connections," he said. "I tried not to be conscious of how much influence there was from Hitchcock."

Cast and crew members were struck by methods that sound similar to those of Hitchcock, like meticulous attention to details of design and color.

"He's made the movie in his head already, in his brain," said Matthew Goode, the British actor who plays Charlie in "Stoker." "He's predetermined so much, down to the walls of the house needing to be a specific color of eggshell."

The production designer Therese DePrez saw Mr. Park's approach from close range, creating decors that amplified the characters' personalities and devising character-specific color schemes: yellow for Ms. Wasikowska's blooming niece, intense reds for Ms. Kidman's sex-starved widow, browns for Mr. Goode's ambiguous, repressed psychopath.

"His sensibility to that kind of detail was something I've never come across before," Ms. DePrez said.

While the Westerners adjusted to his style, Mr. Park, who is used to working with a recurring group of actors and crew in South Korea, was adjusting to working with new people in a language he didn't speak.

Mr. Park played down distinctions between working at home and in America, speaking through an interpreter. "I would say there probably isn't that much difference, and that is what the reaction has been among the people who have seen it.

"Whether they like it or not," he said, "they all agree it very much looks and feels like a Park Chan-wook film."

The New York Times

(China Daily 03/03/2013 page12)