The hammer from Oldboy is about as iconic as any piece of cinematic weaponry, ranking right up there with Thor’s Mjollnir, Jason’s machete, or a Ghostbusters proton pack. But if you think back to the South Korean thriller’s most memorable scene, that hammer isn’t quite as badass as you might remember.

Surrounded by henchmen in a dingy hallway and clutching the deadly tool, Choi Min-sik fights his way through waves of enemies who crumple like paper cutouts at the lightest swing. It’s not exactly the action-packed climax you might expect, but for director Park Chan-wook, that’s always been the point.

“Those enemies are not important people,” Park tells Inverse ahead of Oldboy’s upcoming theatrical re-release. “You can almost say they're abstract beings. So being surrounded by these people and fighting with them for what feels like an eternity, I felt like this was literally a metaphor for one man's life.”

Inverse talks to Park about revenge, the trippy experience of watching Spike Lee’s adaptation of his own film, and the South Korean director’s interest in making a sci-fi or superhero movie.

Cory Finley’s career path is anything but conventional. The writer/director first rose to prominence as a playwright, with his play The Feast now a mainstay at all the coolest college theater programs. He successfully turned his stage script Thoroughbreds into a cult favorite indie film starring Anya Taylor-Joy and Olivia Cooke, then pivoted to the star-studded HBO film Bad Education.

“I'm a very restless filmmaker,” Finley tells Inverse. “When I spend the two to three years that it takes to finish a film on a movie, I'm very done with that world and that tone, and I want something that's a really radical reaction to that.”

That radical reaction came to be Landscape With Invisible Hand, a heartfelt sci-fi story about the effects of an alien invasion on family life and a burgeoning teen romance. Based on M.T. Anderson’s book of the same name, the film is a far cry from Finley’s past in pitch-dark comedy, but the heart and soul — and eerie atmosphere — of his entire filmography is present throughout.

Finley spoke to Inverse about adaptation, his sci-fi influences, and his future steps — including which genre he wants to tackle next.