I will tell this to my Korean roomie and see how he responds.
he might not care. Park's films have been successful in Korea, JSA was the highest grossing film of its year, but his last film was a flop (the so far unreleased in America I'm A Cyborg, But That's Okay) and his Vengeance trilogy plateaued in popularity with Lady Vengeance, not Oldboy, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance was another bomb. He's in the top-tier of commercially successful Korean filmmakers, and he's in the top-tier of internationally known Korean filmmakers, but he's not the biggest fish in the pond, at least not right now (Universal will see to it that his latest film gets great distribution worldwide).
Now if you told your buddy that they're remaking The King and the Clown (highly popular gay friendly costume tragicomedy) as a vehicle for Steve Carell, he might get really steamed(they're not, its a joke). Or you could just remind him that the My Sassy Girl remake was apparently bad enough to go straight to video, or that Dragon Wars is still the highest grossing international Korean film ever, or that Lee Byung-Hun gets to be 13th billed in the G.I. Joe movie, behind Marlon Wayans even.
(ends sleepily made Korean film tirade)