"Stoker," a film so rich and chocolatey with nuance and innuendo you could eat it with a spoon, is, amazingly, directed by a filmmaker who doesn't speak English. British director Mike Leigh once said he would feel "extremely uncomfortable" working on a set over which he doesn't have "100 percent linguistic command," but "Stoker" director Park Chan Wook of South Korea hasn't let language (or the lack of it) deter him from creating a film in English that echoes his Korean movies — which feature some of the most memorable and disturbing visual tableaux in recent cinema history.

Park's landmark work is "Oldboy," the ultraviolent revenge noir that brought him international acclaim and the Cannes Film Festival's Grand Jury Prize in 2003 — and that film had been all about detail rather than dialogue.

"Language is an asset to many directors," Park tells The Japan Times. "But for me, I find that filmmaking itself has, and operates in, its own language. It's like a unique animal."