good luck to him. if it doesn’t work, he can always go back to Korea ;-)
I’m looking forward to it. I’m not sure if it matters too much that he isn’t involved in the writing. Oldboy’s plot was pretty ridiculous but his amazing style made it a great film.
I’m very much looking forward to it, and very interested to see how well he works with english speaking actors in an english language film.
Most of his plots are quite ridiculous, but i find his imagination refreshing, and his direction always makes them fun. I’m a Cyborg and that’s OK might be the oddest romantic comedy i’ve ever seen, but it was also one of the most touching.
anyways, i agree, best of luck to him. I hope he ends up making even more of a name for himself than he already has.
Obvious concern: Bad track record of Asian directors who’ve gone Hollywood (I think we discussed that recently on some other thread).
Lesser obvious concern: the screenplay is by an actor from TV show Prison Break who has no writing credits. The co-credited writer is Erin Cressida Wilson (who has three atrociously bad screenplays to her credit – most recently, mangling Egoyan’s Chloe)
This was bound to happen sooner than later. The cinema of South Korea has unfortunately started following the path of Hollywood for the most part. In fact, generally speaking, it’s probably the most Hollywood of all the non-Hollywood national cinemas out there. In my opinion, Park Chan-wook has made only one good film—Oldboy—but his style and sensibilities should translate pretty well to those of Hollywood. I guess what I’m saying is that I’m really not expecting much from the project in terms of artistic accomplishment.
I have a feeling this will be a bit of a weak project for him. First film in Hollywood/English, no script, having to deal with restrictions. Should be interesting to see how it pans out.
Now the one that really excites me is Kim Ji-woon and his Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle. The man who directed The Good, the Bad and the Weird is directing a chase film as Arnold’s comeback role.
Holy shit. I keep picturing his aggressive style with Schwarzeneggerisms and I can’t help but get excited.
@Blue K — You really thought Oldboy was a better film than Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance? Sympathy is his masterpiece in my opinion. Also I’m a Cyborg was a brilliant rom-com and Thirst was a unique take on the vampire story if anything
@CJ — Kim Ji-Woon has tackled so many genres that i’m sure his Schwarzenegger film will be nothing less than the most entertaining movie to come out in years. I can’t help but imagine the absurdity of The Good, the Bad and the Weird, with the violence of I Saw the Devil, with the one-liners of Commando.
But then again he could go the A Bittersweet Life route and try to give Arny a great dramatic role…
…but i would much rather the former of the two.
@Ari — oh dear, i didn’t even look into the writers, but after you pointed them out…this does not look pleasant.
Erin Cressida Wilson (who has three atrociously bad screenplays to her credit – most recently, mangling Egoyan’s Chloe
How much of that can you place on Wilson, since Chloe was a re-make of Nathalie, the superior film.
Dana Stevens of Slate:
But these gestures toward parallelism feel too on-the-nose, like the earnest thesis project of a film-school student. Even in his best movies, of which this is not one, Egoyan is the kind of determinedly arty director to whom one is always silently saying, “We get it.”
Wilson’s Secretary was effective.
“Oldboy’s plot was pretty ridiculous but his amazing style made it a great film.”
The insanity of OLDBOY’s storyline is one of its strengths, not one of its weaknesses.
oh dear god
“Wilson’s Secretary was effective.”
Secretary didn’t work for me at all but Fur was truly awful. But the awfulness of Wilson’s writing is all very singular in the “on-the-nose”-ness that Stevens’ identifies. So hence what made Chloe bad compared to Nathalie since the changes for the worse in the remake appeared almost entirely to be at the level of the script (I don’t put the blame on Egoyan – I think he made the most with bad material). But, anyway, here, it doesn’t seem like she actually wrote the script but doctored it for the neophyte.
I’m with brentos about Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, which was my introduction to Park, and after which I had high expectations. Although I have mostly enjoyed his other movies, none has really given me the same feeling, so my expectations are rather middling for this, especially because, as Ari points out, Asian directors do not typically do well in the American system, and I think this is especially true of Asian directors who depend strongly on a visual or presentational style (Ang Lee, I like, but I think his emphasis is more thematic than visual—or perhaps it is merely slower, so anything that might be misunderstood in another director’s film has time to be ruminated upon). Park, I feel, relies more on how he presents the material than on the material itself (I do think Sympathy was good material, which is why, of what I’ve seen, I feel it is his best), so I expect a partially entertaining, somewhat visually interesting movie that will be marketed poorly (i.e., without understanding of intentions) and will probably be, ultimately, forgettable.
CJ Roy – I had no idea Kim Jee-woon was directing that; while I can’t say I have high expectations, my desire to see it just went up.
So basically this sounds like a quasi-remake of Shadow of a Doubt.
Great cast. I’m sold.
@Matt Parks
immediately what my mind went to. It’s Park’s Shadow of a Dout which Park Chan Wook said Hitchcock as his inspiration to films
(I don’t put the blame on Egoyan – I think he made the most with bad material). But, anyway, here, it doesn’t seem like she actually wrote the script but doctored it for the neophyte.
Yeah, she doesn’t write original work – she adapts.
I guess we’ll have to disagree about blaming the script writer for Chloe.
I’m going to watch Fur on Tuesday.
Yes, tell me what you think, Peabody. I wonder if our tastes are that diametrically opposed and Fur is as good a film as any to test that with.
Well, I hadn’t watched it to this point b/c I heard it was bad – so my expectations are low.
And we agree Chloe is bad, I just see the badness emanating from Egoyan’s filmmaking style – are you going to say that he let screenwriter change his style?
I agree there was in part a problem of working with the material. Egoyan’s stilted style lends itself best to either the oblique and fragmented or to the just plain playful. Chloe was neither – it was too obvious and overwritten and not fun enough in its sleazy B-movieness.
Hmm. At any rate, it’s probably a good sign that he’s able to work with Chung-hoon Chung (who shot Oldboy, Lady Vengence, Cyborg, and Thirst for him, as well as his segment in *Three . . . Extremes) rather than having to use some generic Hollywood DP.
Any more updates on this one? All I know is that it’s completed filming and slated for release sometime next year.
Cautiously optimistic. I still can’t wrap my mind around the notion that Wook is directing a screenplay written by Wentworth Miller…
i haven’t read any new news. It’s odd to me him doing a film in English at all, but i guess we all knew it was inevitable, and he already was a pretty ‘hollywood’ director by most standards. hopefully it ends up being a decent film, i’m with Takaa, i’me cautiously optimistic
I’m a lot more than “cautiously” optimistic. I’m really looking forward to it. If it sucks, oh well. He’s a great director, and he’ll do more films… and there are always all the great ones he’s already done too.
I think it’s great he’s doing a US movie… maybe this will really get his name a lot more attention here in the states.
Brentos
here’s the IMDb site
He is directing, but not writing the script (which i believe is a first for him).
Personally, Park is one of my favorite working directors right now, and the cinema of South Korea has been phenomenal, especially over the past decade. After gaining international acclaim with Oldboy I wasn’t surprised that he would be getting more and more popular, but i never thought that he would be making the transfer over to Hollywood.
While the cast looks fine to me—Kidman is great when she has the right direction and Matthew Goode always delivers—I guess we’ll see how Park does at directing a film for an entirely different culture in an entirely different language.
What thoughts/comments/concerns/criticisms/praises does anyone else have?