The First Red Band Trailer For Spike Lee's OLDBOY Is Online

Nearly a year after making controversial statements criticizing director Quentin Tarantino‘s pre-Civil War blaxploitation spaghetti western-inspired drama, Django Unchained, filmmaker Spike Lee re-enters the spotlight where he will await the verdict of film goers and Asian cinema fans everywhere upon the release of his next film, Oldboy, a “re-interpretation” of the 2003 Korean cult classic which was directed by Park Chan-wook. Lee’s film stars Josh Brolin, Elizabeth Olsen, Samuel L. Jackson and Sharlto Copley. The film is one of several Korean titles we can expect to continue to cross over to North America between now and next year for Hollywood adaptations, including actress Charlize Theron‘s upcoming role in the reboot of the 2005 film, Lady Vengeance.

Collectively, both Oldboy movies are loosely based on an orginal story and graphic Japanese novel published and serialized between 1996 and 1998 by author Garon Tsuchiya and illustrator by Nobuaki Minegishi, about a man mysteriously kidnapped and locked away for ten years, only to be suddenly released, and subsequently driven to investigate the city’s criminal underbelly to find out who took him a decade earlier and why. The story involves another mysterious, much younger woman he crosses paths with, and a hidden ememy from his past, whose motives eventually prove to be way more than meets the eye.

In comparison, both films also augment the number of years in which the lead charcter is held in captivity.

In 2012, actors Brolin and Copley have shared upbeat responses to the film and working with Lee, in addition to actor Choi Min-sik, the original star in Park’s adaptation as the lead, who explained his position in sharing no interest in seeing the film at the time, but supported it nonetheless.

Anyone worrying that the film will be a remake of the 2003 hit can breathe just a little more. According to statements made late last year, Brolin also said that Lee’s film would not be a complete remake of Park’s film, just similar in structure. Citing award-winning fight choreographer J.J. Perry‘s work on the hallway fight scene in particular, Brolin stated the following:

“We don’t match anything [from the hallway scene]. The only matching is that we do it in one take. That’s the only matching. That’s the only similarity. Well, no, there’s one more similarity, but it’s basically the only similarity within that sequence and I think I can be safe to say that it’s not anything like the original other than it is one take and I’ve never experienced or seen anything like it. And I think what J.J. Perry did as the fight coordinator is something phenomenal. 

I will say this, I thought there is no way I could possibly pull it off until about a week before we did it after rehearsing it for quite a while.”

The original stunt coordinator who designed the action for Park’s film the late Ji Jung-Hyeon. Little is known about Hyeon who was also a stuntman throughout his career, but among his previous credits are the 2007 epic biopic, Mongol with actor Tadanobu Asano, and the 2006 gangster thriller, City Of Violence with Jung Doo-hong and Ryu Seung-wan. Hyeon died on the set of Kim Ji-woon’s 2008 film, The Good, The Bad & The Weird.

Oldboy premieres on October 25, 2013.

SYNOPSIS:

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.

Co-starring Elizabeth Olsen and Sharlto Copley, OLDBOY was directed by Spike Lee, from a script by Mark Protosevich (I Am Legend, The Cell, Thor). The film was produced by Roy Lee, Doug Davison and Nathan Kahane.

Check out the new trailer below, courtesy of Yahoo! Movies.