S Korea director unchanged by Venice triumph

South Korean film director Kim Ki-Duk said he would stick to his maverick ways after winning the coveted Golden Lion prize at the Venice film festival for his anti-capitalist movie “Pieta”. “Pieta mirrors my philosophy… I will continue to produce interesting and meaningful movies like this film,” Kim said. The eccentric director, long-treated as an outcast at home, won the top award in Venice for the film, which tells of a brutal loan shark who struggles for redemption after he meets a woman claiming to be his mother. It was the first time a South Korean movie has walked off with the top award at any of the big three international film festivals in Cannes, Berlin and Venice. “Extreme capitalism is the theme of my movie. In Pieta I tried to depict the life of people being destroyed by money,” he told reporters in Seoul. The 51-year-old has often been criticized at home for his signature tales of dark, violent and twisted characters in South Korea’s back streets since his low-budget debut film “Crocodile” in 1996. Kim admitted he had often been shunned by investors despite a glittering resume that includes a host off international directorial awards.