I have no desire to see a Hollywood version of Chan-wook Park's 2002 Korean stylish and effective revenge thriller Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance. If it ever gets made, I would wager it'll be a fairly heavy-handed, unnecessarily convoluted, glossy thriller with a big dramatic score, and I'm guessing - a more clear sense of right and wrong with someone like D.J. Caruso at the helm. It would probably revolve around one protagnist instead of the movie's genius decision to do a Psycho switch have way through and have two. Either that, or I guess it'll be an Eli Roth/Saw kind of torture porn picture. I'm perfectly fine without seeing either, thank you. The original is all I need. Warner Bros. have picked up the remake rights to Wook's first film in his near-perfect Vengeance trilogy according to Screen Daily and have sent rookie scribe Brian Tucker away with the writing duties. His CV boasts no produced screenplays - so without a recognised writer or director, it's kinda hard to see where this one is going right now and therefore kinda hard to be enthused, because it's a studio decision to remake it, i.e. - they see cash in a remake, instead of a Martin Scorsese or a Cameron Crowe coming along and saying "I can do something special with this". The movie, which I would place 2nd in my Vengeance filmography (behind Oldboy but ahead of Lady Vengeance) follows a deaf labourer who kidnaps the daughter of a wealthy businessman in an attempt to fund his ailing sisters operation. The switch-a-roo comes sometime into the movie, and you're then behind the businessman's desperate attempts to take vengeance on the kidnappers.
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It's a brave, miles out of Hollywood shift of narrative that doesn't allow for an easy reading of good vs. bad - as the film suggests that no-one really gets pleasure from vengeance, it only creates further victims. When was the last time outside of an old Clint Eastwood movie, that a Hollywood movie told you that? Chan-wook's Park original trilogy wasn't about gore, violence or it's shock-value. It was about it's intensity but you can't remake that - it's a God given talent, you either have it or you don't. . Of course, there's always the chance it will go the same way as the Steven Spielberg/Will Smith remake of Oldboy and it'll never get off the ground. So rest assured, there's a long way to go yet.