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  • Oldboy remake by Spielberg and Smith??
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    Wednesday, Jul 8, 2009 3:23AM / Standard Entry / Members only
    7 comments

    I just came across the news below:

    "Steven Spielberg and Will Smith are planning to collaborate on a remake of Park Chan-wook's Oldboy, according to Variety. The pair, who have been looking for a project to work on together for some time, are said to be in early discussions about reworking the acclaimed Korean thriller, which centers on a man who is kidnapped and held in a dirty cell for 15 years without explanation.

    Smith would play the imprisoned man - Choi Min-sik in the 2003 original - who is freed just as he is about to put an escape plan into practice. He is given money, clothes and a mobile phone and sets out to discover who stole his life from him in order to take revenge."

    I remember a few years ago, the project was associated with director Justin Lin, but now looks like there have been some major change to the cast and crew.

     

    Either way, I am just wondering if a remake of Oldboy is necessary? I mean, among all the Asian remakes in recent years, how many of them would you consider a success? And how many of them did end up being big flops?

     

    Ring (2002) is perhaps a moderate success at the box office, but after that, fans of Asian horror cinema probably wouldn't forget all the mess Hollywood produced. "The Grudge", "One Missed Call", "Pulse", ...etc., I really couldn't think of an appropriate word other than "crap" to describe these films.

     

    Ok, so perhaps Hollywood filmmakers don't really know how to interpret Asian horror, what about other genres? I wonder if anyone here actually knows that the remake of "My Sassy Girl" is already out at the market? The fact that it goes straight to DVD with no promotion at all and is already listed as bargain item in my local department store probably tell you how "good" the film is. And not to mention "Lake House", which is probably Keanu Reeves' lowest grossing film in the past decade.

     

    Hollywood should stop butchering Asian films, and most importantly, stop making Asian film your cheap source of ideas that compensate the impotence of your highly paid screenwriters!

     

    P.S. Yeah, I know Spielberg's Oldboy is supposed to be an adaptation of the original comic, but still, I just feel uncomfortable with all the crappy remakes Hollywood produced.

Entry comments (7)

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  • rottendoubt
     rottendoubt
    posted on Wednesday, Jul 8, 2009 6:18PM [Report]
    never saw the original, but i hear you about hollywood remakes.  but maybe they are hoping for another "the departed".
  • Etchy
     Etchy
    posted on Wednesday, Jul 8, 2009 1:29PM [Report]
    isn't it kind of dark for Spielberg?
  • ThomasHalle
    Official artist Thomas Halle
    posted on Wednesday, Jul 8, 2009 9:25AM [Report]
    Isn't that old news, the Oldboy thing? I wonder if it's still in the loop at all... If so I assume they're only going to keep the 'locked up for 15 years' part and somehow twist the rest in some do-goodin' Christian shit. I don't see cash-cows Spielberg and Smith coming up with a NC17 film, studios won't let that happen in a million years. Unless maybe it was Weinstein with Tarantino.

    I think Hollywood has plenty of crap coming out without the help of any other successful foreign film anyway. And frankly, most of the J-horror single mother in a cursed flat or K-drama cancer chick material they had wasn't that good to begin with.

    Oh, check out the hate mail I'm going to get for saying that! lol
  • mariejost
    Official artist Marie Jost
    posted on Wednesday, Jul 8, 2009 6:27AM [Report]
    Do like I do, avoid HW remakes!
  • SlideRiceFC
    SlideRiceFC
    posted on Wednesday, Jul 8, 2009 5:37AM [Report]
    I couldn't agree more.
  • peachey
    peachey
    posted on Wednesday, Jul 8, 2009 3:33AM [Report]
    People might like seeing the butchering and physical violence of an Oldboy remake. Heck, they probably won't even know it's a K remake.
  • Yes_Tom
    Yes_Tom
    posted on Wednesday, Jul 8, 2009 3:28AM [Report]
    Why god, why? Hollywood pisses me off some times.

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