Spike Lee to direct Oldboy remake

I have no interest in seeing Oldboy remade when the original is a fine film in its own right. Especially not a remake from a country whose cultural values will make it very difficult to produce and market a decently-funded film which examines .

I can understand and enjoy remakes which radically reimagine the original, or where the original isn't very good. There's nothing wrong with Oldboy as it stands that suggests an american remake would be interesting.

Da Shins Kelly wrote: »

Yeah, I get people's curiosity, and if you like the original, you're gonna be tempted to watch another, possibly different version of it, but I've never been that drawn to American remakes of foreign movies.

The Departed is the only example I can think of off-hand that worked well - I really enjoyed Infernal Affairs, and The Departed had enough of its own flavour that I enjoyed it too, without having that horrible feeling you normally get with such remakes of noticing all the bits that have been put in to make sure even the dimmest of audience members can keep track of the story and/or feel a suitable amount of closure at the ending (Dark Water, I'm looking at you. Original version wasn't exactly amazing, but the remake was so close as to be pointless, while ensuring that what little they added to the film made it worse).

SVG wrote: »

You know what, I'm really looking forward to this!

I know remakes are the devil's work etc... but for me what was most interesting about Oldboy was not the story but the style- Park Chan-wook's films are so visually distinctive- so I'm really interested to see how another strong voice will handle the same material. If it was John Moore or someone like that directing I'd have different thoughts on the matter but it's Spike Lee! At the very least it'll be a cool compare and contrast. And the original will still exist. Hey, if any other world auteurs want to take a stab at doing their version, I'd be ok with that. Think of the film nerd possibilities! I mean, I don't think I could watch Michael Haneke's Oldboy but I would welcome its existence.

Plus I'm looking forward to seeing Sharlto Copley on the big screen again.

I disagree and I think you're doing a disservice to the narrative in the film to suggest that only the visual style was noteworthy. The style was exceptional, yes, as it generally is in Chan-Wook's films, but it worked because the narrative and the storytelling were in step with the style.

Where the kind of "bring your own voice to a familiar yarn" exercises that you allude to (like The Aristocrats) actually work is when the original story is simple and has space where the auteur in question has space to truly make it their own, bringing their own style and storytelling to the fore. I'm firmly of the opinion that Oldboy is, in the context of revenge films, sufficiently distinctive that this would not be the case. I'd be much more interested in such auteurs coming with projects to remake flawed films with a strong premise, to see if in a new and different project they can realise the potential that the original missed out.

In which light, I'd be very disappointed if the best idea for a project that any of the kind of auteurs you mention could come up with was "their own version of $FILM". And yes, that does kind of apply to Spike Lee here as well.

paddy kerins wrote: »

There's some spoilers here

http://www.joblo.com/movie-news/spike-lees-oldboy-remake-test-screening-reaction-says-its-just-as-sick-and-twisted-as-the-origina

It's hard to know what to make of that; things like describing the new hallway as "ridiculous and over the top - and I loved it", or talking about spending the second and third acts cringing, make me wonder how much the reviewer's perspective and my own are aligned. Without seeing the film it's impossible to form an informed opinion on it, obviously, but those comments wouldn't be enough to change my mind and make me want to see it (not least because they seem like a fairly obvious attempt at getting positive buzz going a few months in advance of the release).

SVG wrote: »

I think what's best about it is, even if it's bad, it'll be an interesting conversation- about Spike Lee, about Chan-wook Park, and about adaptations. And I like talking about films!

It's funny you use the word "adaptation" - if we'd heard much about Lee wanting to do a new English language adaptation of the original comics, ignoring the previous film version, there might be more scope for this to be interesting. I'm guessing most people (myself included) will interpret it as a remake of the film, though.

Sadly, I don't think there's scope for Lee's Oldboy to add much interesting new flavour to the ongoing "American audiences - apparently allergic to subtitles and/or foreigners" thread permeating film discussion. If anything it'll be more of the same.