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| Darcy Paquet, left, subtitle translator of the Oscar-winning film "Parasite," poses for a photo after receiving a certificate of honorary citizenship from Busan Vice Mayor Byun Seong-wan at Busan City Hall, Monday. Yonhap |
By Kwon Mee-yoo
Darcy Paquet, American film critic and subtitle translator of the Oscar-winning film "Parasite," became an honorary citizen of Busan for his contributions to the city's film education.
Paquet, 48, has been lecturing at the International Film Business Academy of the Busan Asian Film School as an adjunct professor since 2017. He teaches courses such as Asian Film Industry and Cinema Genres and guides student's films, discovering and educating budding film students in Asia.
"I am honored to be appointed as an honorary citizen of Busan. Busan is a great city to work on films. We will see Busan more often in international films when our students, who are the future of their country's movie industry, return to the city as producers," Paquet was quoted saying after receiving the honorary citizen certificate.
Established in 2016, the Busan Asian Film School aims to nurture international film business experts based on the city's longstanding interest and efforts in cinema including the Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) and its UNESCO designation as a Creative City of Film.
Busan local government said Paquet's students have been invited to and won awards at the world's top film festivals such as the Cannes Film Festival, the Berlinale and Venice Film Festival, promoting the school as well as the city's efforts to become the hub of film education in Asia.
Paquet, who first came to Korea as an English instructor at Korea University back in 1997, was fascinated by Korean film and learned the Korean language.
He started working with Bong Joon-ho of "Parasite" fame in 2000 when Paquet was asked to revise the English subtitles of the director's first feature, "Barking Dogs Never Bite." Since then Paquet has translated most of Bong's films into English, except for "Okja," which was produced in the States.
Paquet is considered one of the hidden heroes of the historic Oscars win at the Academy Awards in February as he translated the Korean dialogue for English-speaking audiences and bridged the cultural gap deftly.
One of his best coinages was "ramdon," his translation of "jjapaguri," which became the iconic dish of the film encompassing a complicated class story. Jjapaguri is a mixture of Chapaghetti, Korean instant black bean noodles, and Neoguri, spicy udon-like noodles, but since non-Koreans are not familiar with Korean instant noodle brands, Paquet came up with the idea of combining the words "ramyeon" and "udon," which are more widely known.
He also changed Korea's most prestigious Seoul National University to Oxford and popular chatting application KakaoTalk to WhatsApp for better universal understanding without harming the original intention.
Paquet is the founder of Koreanfilm.org and the author of "New Korean Cinema: Breaking the Waves" (2010).
As a film expert specializing in Korean cinema, Paquet was awarded the Korea Film Reporters Association Award at the 15th Busan International Film Festival in 2011 for his efforts to introduce Korean films to the world.
In 2014, he co-launched the Wildflower Film Awards Korea, which recognizes achievements in Korean independent filmmaking.
Other films Paquet has translated English subtitles for include "The Handmaiden," "The Day After" and "The Age of Shadows."
