This red band trailer for OLDBOY has been thinking for twenty years

It’s not easy adapting movies from foreign territories into material that will satisfy western audiences. Which is most likely why American films based on British productions fail so damn every single time. But other nations? There’s potential there to take that original movie and rework it into something that can suit the tastes of that audience.

Spike Lee has been doing just that lately, as he worked on an adaptation of the Park Chan-wook classic Oldboy. Lee claims that his film will be a faithful mix of that cult movie and the original manga source material. And in this first trailer for Oldboy, he’s about half right. 

OLDBOY is a provocative, visceral thriller that follows the story of an advertising executive (Josh Brolin) who is abruptly kidnapped and held hostage for 20 years in solitary confinement. When he is inexplicably released, he embarks on an obsessive mission to discover who orchestrated his bizarre and torturous punishment only to find he is still trapped in a web of conspiracy and torment.

It’s looking like a spot-on adaptation of the first film at least. Like a highlight reel to tell the fans that he knows what he’s doing, Lee’s Oldboy looks like a good mix of visuals and story so far. But I’d like to see more of Brolin as the tormented lead character, as well as what Lee has in store when it comes to action. Man, how can anyone top that hammer fight scene in the corridor from the original film? I want to know! But I genuinely do want to see Lee’s vision for the film, not a cover song of hammer-time violence.

Hopefully, the next trailer will have more of that. Oldboy will be released into the wild on October 25, and also stars Elizabeth Olsen, Samuel L Jackson and Sharlto Copley.

 

 

 

Last Updated: July 11, 2013