Did you see "Oldboy"?

[lord dubu]

If so, how do you feel about the Justin Lin (Better Luck Tomorrow) remake?

Specifically, how do you feel after reading this summary of the new vesion:

"A recently paroled middle-aged man, who spent 15 years in prison without any explanation as to why he was jailed, seeks revenge on those who conspired against him."?

 

[oberGeist]

'oldboy' is a great movie. very well written and played. some say that it's tarantino-like, but I say that it was even better.

I HATE all this recent trend to do remakes. are there no new ideas left in the heads of hollywood producers/writers/directors?
comic-book based/video game based/remakes - that's pretty much all that is being filmed now.

and about that 'oldboy' remake - oh dae-su was NOT IN PRISON.
wtf? that changes very important part of the story -

Spoiler

it was some kind of richman's playground, they could lock someone for as long as they wanted and observe them for fun/revenge.

(spoiler is for those who haven't seen the movie yet)
are the producers affraid that people won't understand the whole original concept of the place?

I don't like the idea, but we'll see how it comes out.

 

[mortiz]

It looks like they're going to take an original and different story and Hollywood'ise it as usual. I doubt you'll get the whole ...

Spoiler

incest

...thing going on.

 

[lord dubu]

I couldn't agree more! And it is precisely the "parole" and "prison" parts of the treatment that I took issue with. I am glad I'm not the only one.

I think Mortiz hit the nail on the head, Hollywood either thinks we're not smart enough to understand the nature of DaeSu's imprisonment or that they'll make more money by rehashing the old trite wrongfully imprisoned search for the one-armed man cliche.

No doubt they'll replace that AWESOME:

Spoiler

Sidescrolling action sequence where Oh Daesu get's midevil on a bunch of kkangpei-gakdokgi-seki with a friggin' hammer... that's gotta be one of the best fight sequences I've seen in a decade

With a choppy, cinema veritae style shaky cam rapid cut action sequence, I'm SO sick of that.

Though I disagree that they will leave out the

Spoiler

incest

... as it's already a concept that has been featured in several American films.

 

[mortiz]

In the past maybe, not now. Hollywood is scared of things like that now, it's not adventurous at all. Which is part of the reason we very rarely see anything original out of Hollywood these days.