It's hard for me to respond here since I haven't seen any of the films you refer to, although I agree that good acting can enhance clichéd material, and Bong's films in particular benefit enormously from the contributions of Song Kang-ho. That said, even at his most entertaining, I find that Bong's films--and Park's Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance--evaporate for me the moment they end; they don't linger in my memory the way that a film like La Cérémonie does because their characters are so much less substantial. (A more extreme example would be the Almodóvar of La mala educación and Los abrazos rotos, which seemed to evaporate as I was watching them despite the star power of Gael GarcÃ*a Bernal and Penélope Cruz.)Quoting Irish (view post)
I wasn't claiming Chabrol's film is innovative necessarily, only that the characters have a level of specificity that makes them more than generic types.
Incidentally, I read The Woman in White last year and thoroughly enjoyed it.
It's true of any narrative film that the more important characters have more specificity and shading than the minor characters. Still, if memory serves (and it's been over fifteen years since I've seen La Cérémonie), Chabrol views the rich family with a certain amount of affection, complicating our sympathy for the Sandrine Bonnaire character and making the ending genuinely shocking (Get Out this ain't).