An OLDBOY remake? Really?
2 comments November 7th, 2008
According to this report from Variety, Hollywood bigwigs Steven Spielberg and Will Smith are considering a remake of OLDBOY, the remarkable 2003 revenge drama from Korean director Chan-wook Park. It’s a powerful film that begins with an exploitation-flavored plot (man is kidnapped, stuck in a room for 15 years, then released and told to seek revenge) and goes off into unexpected, emotionally risky territory.
Aside from Scorsese’s THE DEPARTED (which is a remake of the Hong Kong film INFERNAL AFFAIRS), I’m not a fan of these American remakes of Asian movies. So many of these films (especially the Japanese horror movies, like RINGU) get their real power for a distinctly foreign sensibility that doing a new version with an American cast seems pointless — unless you’re looking for a good way to drain away what worked in the first place. Scorsese, obviously no stranger to the mean streets, brought his own touch to THE DEPARTED, making it something entirely separate from its HK inspiration.
I’m sure Spielberg, Smith and Co. will do something similar with OLDBOY. Heck, they’ll have to. Unlike your average American revenge drama, OLDBOY is often slow and deliberate, taking its sweet time to set up one heck of a gut-punching ending. And speaking of its ending, I really can’t see Mr. Loveable Family Man Will Smith coming within a hundred miles of that particular plot twist. (If you’ve seen OLDBOY, you can guess what I’m referring to.)
OLDBOY does, on the other hand, have some truly amazing action scenes, including the greatest fight with a hammer in the history of motion pictures. Watch this clip of that scene, then tell me what Spielberg, Smith and a pile of Hollywood money could possibly do to improve it.
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