There's an old saying that you should never meet your heroes. It's utter nonsense, of course – you should go out of your way to meet your heroes. What's the worst that could happen? If Robert De Niro punches you in the nose, you have a good story to tell. And if he's dull as dishwater, well, he was still great in Raging Bull. And if he ends up taking you out on the town with Al Pacino? Hoo-hah!

So when the arts editor moots doing an interview with Park Chan-wook, I ignore the fact that she seems slightly taken aback by my geekish excitement and waggle my hand in the air like an eight-year-old trying to get an muinteoir's attention.

"You're a fan of his?" Definitely – he's the man behind some of the most visually exciting and viscerally thrilling films of the last decade (Sympathy for Mr Vengeance, Old Boy, Joint Security Area); he's one of the few directors as loved by audiences as he is by critics (two Cannes jury prizes and countless other gongs); and he has Steven Spielberg and Will Smith falling over themselves to do English-language re­makes of his movies. Yes, I'm a fan.

"He doesn't speak English." That could put a slight dampener on the conversation. "You'll have to do it through an interpreter." O-kay, that could work. "Over the phone." Hmmm.

The set-up is this. Park and his interpreter are sitting around a conference table somewhere with a speakerphone. I put a question to his interpreter. She listens and repeats back the question to confirm that she's understood. I attempt to clarify the question. She repeats it again. Politeness dictates I accept this second interpretation. She asks him the question. He answers. She discusses his answer with him. He clarifies his answer. She gives me the first half of the answer, has another chat with him, and then finishes his answer. Then it's time for another question. It would be an understatement to say that it's tough to get a rhythm going.

For example, Park's bonkers and brilliant new film, Thirst, is the tale of a Catholic priest who unwittingly becomes a vampire and finds his religious vows coming into conflict with his new need for blood. The Sunday Tribune concocts a smart, nay, ingenious question based around how Catholicism could be seen to be a foreign invader into Korea – it's the most popular religion there – in much the same way that vampirism is depicted as invading the priest's body. We go through our peculiar little Q&A dance. The res­ponse is simply the initial inquiry with the question marks removed. Damn. That was easily my best question.

Moving on. Is he religious? They discuss it and the interpreter explains to me: "He was brought up as a Catholic, so he didn't have any choice. When he was at high school, priests recommended to him that he become a priest, so after that he started ignoring religion and stopped being a practising Catholic." I briefly contemplate a gag about how he mustn't have been a very good Catholic if he needed to practise, but it would be a logistical nightmare.

And so it goes. There are also many lengthy pauses where no-one seems sure whose turn it is to talk. Frequently the interpreter giggles like a schoolgirl at Park's words and then presents me with an answer containing nothing that could be construed as humour.

Still, some of the answers to questions never asked sound good. "Guilt and redemption can often be the same thing. To get vengeance you have to sacrifice everything, so even if you achieve the goal of revenge there is no pleasure or benefit." And, "One of the functions of art is that you can create a character and feel what it could be like to have no morality. It's not evil, it's more like young children that haven't yet figured out what morality is."

The odd question sticks. Park doesn't think his movies are received any differently around the world to how they are in Korea because they tend to be "close to the edge, so the reaction is dependent on personality, not nationality". He finds it hard to watch scary movies on the big screen, finding them overwhelming, but "making a horror film is totally different to watching one as he knows all the tricks. So as a fan of horror films, the best he can do is actually make them."

Lastly, what does he think of Spielberg's plan to remake Old Boy? "In his opinion, Spielberg is a brilliant director to talk about vengeance because of Jaws and Munich so he's looking forward to seeing the new version, but he has no involvement in it so far." And with that, we start the lengthy process of saying our goodbyes...

Thirst is playing in cinemas now