Hot on the heels of
the poster reveal yesterday, FilmDistrict have unleashed the first Red Band trailer for Spike Lee's English-language remake of the Korean classic revenge thriller, Oldboy. Fans of the original will likely be pleased by two key things from the trailer; 1) Josh Brolin looks bad-ass in the iconic role of the advertising executive who is kidnapped and then released twenty years later with no clue as to why he was ever imprisoned in solitary confinement... 2) Lee has thankfully gone for a Hard-R approach, which is the only way to approach the material. You can watch the trailer for yourselves below; Refreshingly, the movie looks like nothing Lee has done before and he seems to genuinely have a few ideas of his own and has something new to bring to the table for American audiences from what Park Chan-wook delivered to Korean audiences (and then the rest of the world who upon first of many viewings had their gaping mouths wide open at the awesomeness that was being delivered). This one looks like it may at least half a chance of being worthwhile, which is probably the best we could have hoped for from a remake of such a stunning and distinct film. It's Oldboy, clearly... but there could be something in this, even if Lee couldn't help himself but redo some of the iconic moments of the original (everything from the much lauded hammer hallway fight scene and the opening imprisoned shots are extremely familiar from a visual and tonal view... but there's a few deviations that should keep us guessing). The big question though is whether Elizabeth Olsen's subplot ends up going the same easy as it did in the original. Oldboy will be delivering vengeance on October 25th and will co-star Sharlto Copley and Samuel L. Jackson. If nothing else... take away from the trailer that at one point Steven Spielberg and Will Smith were going to remake this. Can you imagine how much lighter than this that version would have turned out to be?
