God no. Please please PLEASE not Jane. I remeber When Nicolas Cage was rumored to star. I think that if he brought his A game to that then it could actually be pretty good.

The way I see it they need to ethier cast a well know and respected actor or a unknown. Not some second rate actor like Jane. And make sure whoever does it has what it takes to do this role right.

Jane is an ok actor but he's definitly not the guy if they are at all interested in making this a worthy remake. I vote for Ed Norton.

fuck. thomas jane? did anyone not see "dreamcatcher" or "the sweetest thing"? what are you thinking? ok, retarded roles, why is he up for "old boy"?

adam-"worthy remake"? "worthy remake"? are you nuts? this movie is not worthy of a remake because it is flawless. only shitty movies are worthy of remakes because they did so badly the first go around that they should be remade (ie. dreamcatcher). do you get what i'm saying? oldboy is not worthy of a remake because there is no reason to remake it. no reason whatsoever. i hope chanwookpark comes to your house and guts you like a fish for saying his work is marred and should be remade. you're retarded.

why is it that whenever somebody outside of the US makes a brilliant piece of film or television the US has to remake it and try to capitilize on it? has anyone seen "the office" on nbc? total suckage. even though ricky gervais is a producer on the american remake it's still not as good as the original. BOOYAKISHA. what is wrong with americans and entertainment? can't anyone out there besides kaufman, jonze and gondry make anything worth a damn that's original?

why all the fucking remakes? hey, hollywood, shut your doors for a year and send all your writers and producers back to school so they can take some fucking creative writing courses and start fresh. this is ridiculous. there have been more remakes in the past 10 years in america than ever before. oh let's make an old 1960's sitcom into a movie that'll make alot of money. oh this japanese film is really good, i'm bored so i'm gonna remake it. this korean film won big at cannes let's remake it for american audiences.

ENOUGH ALREADY.

these are the vague references in my last paragraph.

if i wanted to watch bewitched (which i love to death and want to throw up everytime i see the trailer for the remake) i'd turn on nick at nite or wait for a season dvd of it.

shall we dance is a beautiful japanese film that a friend of mine showed me in college back in 1998. good thing i was alone in my dorm womb watching it cause it got a little emotional. i'd personally like to kick the ass of whoever greenlighted the remake as well as all the actors and the director for remaking it.

and that brings us to oldboy. i saw old boy at bnat5 and i've got to say, i was pretty much blown away. i almost hate to say it but i hope the american remake bombs at the box office. if i could recommend to anyone go rent it, download it, borrow it from a friend, hell buy the dvd (yes it is available). boycott american remakes at all costs. hollywood doesn't listen to people, they listen to money, so if you don't go to the theater to watch their shit they will get the message.

there. there's my 10 cents. thanks for listening.

yes its been rumoured about for months now. theres even an IMDB entry for it. didnt read your piece here, so i dont know if you posted the lead rumour : NICHOLAS CAGE...

oh . dear. i. want. to. cry.

Jason - In a way I understand what you're saying , but you need to settle down. I think redoing a foriegn movie could be great as long as the people involved actually care about the material and try to remain faithful to it. They seem to be doing the with The Departed (Infernal Affairs remake).

You need to realize that a lot of people do not want to watch a movie with subtitles or crappy English voice over. Plus when a foriegn movie does well enough over seas or is getting a remake they usually release it here stateside. Granted it's in the arthouse theatres but it's still something.

Instead of being angry at the fact that they are getting remade you should be more angry that the studio is remaking them just for the sake of money. And that's more of a problem with movies all together. I think studios should at least meet half way. Theres a way to make money and still make good movies.

And when it all boils down to it a good movie is a good movie no matter where it came from.

well yeah, a good movie is a good movie no matter what, but if it has already been done why redo it? why have two different versions of oldboy? why have two versions of ringu and ringu 2? why have two versions of juon:the grudge and the curse? if you have a problem with subtitles then you shouldn't be seeing these movies anyway. you should be sitting at home watching your must see tv and friends reruns on tbs.

oldboy isn't broke so why is somebody trying to fix it? you would think that the hollywood writers and producers would take a look at what's going on in asian cinema and get a clue. miike is pumping out a dozen flicks a year, korea is pumping out many many creative and original films. why doesn't the american industry strive to be more creative and original instead of remaking things. we don't want to see american actors starring in our favorite foreign film remakes, we want to see our american actors in original american films.

could you imagine an american remake of battle royal starring all the hottest hollywood teens? ashton, lohan, simpson. you get the point? battle royal is good for what it is. it would become a lesser film if it were remade here starring american actors. yeh, it'd be nice to see all the annoying teen stars get blown away and chopped up brutaly but that's besides the point. there has to be a line drawn somewhere that stops these great foreign films from being desecrated by cheap hollywood remakes.

Again , to an extent I do agree with you. Hollywood needs to start being more creative and coming up with original ideas instead of sequels and remakes. But I dont see why the cant go hand in hand.

And I dont think redoing a foriegn movie is fixing something thats broken as much as it bacming it for the American movie going public. Like I said before , some people just do not like subtitles. it takes the focus away from what's going on screen. I think it sucks too cause I love foriegn films.

Like I said before though , I think the focus should be on making the movies better instead of not trying to make them at all.

yes, movies in general should be made better and an attempt to improve upon it should not be made after the fact regardless of what country they come from. once a movie is released, that's it; you don't get to go back and fix it. that's what the whole process of making a movie is about. you show it to boards of people and revisions are made until it's done, then released. you don't show a film win a bunch of awards and go straight to the top of your game just to have america take an award winning piece of work and try to make it better. oldboy is a gold nugget from korea and it will become a steaming pile of shit as an american remake.

if you can't watch a movie with subtitles and still see the action of the film then there's something wrong with you. go get an eye exam. you're not suposed to read the subtitles thoroughly anyway. glance at them, let them register and put your eyes back on the screen. you can read, you know what words look like. enjoy the action and let the dialogue sink in subliminally while you're watching the movie. don't think of it as a book where you have to focus all of your attention on the words. most dialogue used in subtitles is no different than american dialogue. it's in short sentences and phrases. if someone reads at a second grade level, yeh, i can easily seeing them being turned off by subtitles. but seriously, subtitles...wtf?

I'm going to have to go with Jason on this one. Although I accept the reasons behind remaking a foreign film (people don't like subtitles blah blah) I still don't like the idea.

It will just be changed too much, whether the makers do it on purpose or not, I can't see the kind of brutality and shocking scenes played out by some Hollywood hunk. Nic Cage eating a live octopus? Not going to happen.

Surely they could just follow the Hero formula. Wheel Tarantion out occasionally to sing the film's praises and slap a 'Quentin Tarantino Presents' in front of the title and you've got you box-office smash right there. Subtitles and all.

(and P.S. Can you honestly see any Hollywood actor pulling off 'that' fight scene? You know the one I mean.)

To respond to domdunc, if a remake was made, which I think is unnecessary, I think that Bruce Willis could pull off that fight scene. Heck, I think he would be a great choice for the lead role. I know some people may laugh at that suggestion, but I think he plays the ordinary guy thrust into the hero role just as good as anyone. Sure he's old, but he can act, he can do action, and I think he can convey the quiet rage and desperation of Oh Daesu admirably. Just think about it. (P.S. ..I still think the original should be left alone. A classic!)

How hard is it to fight a bunch of guys with a hammer? All you need is a fight trainer. And I really dont care if they octopus part is in the remakes. Its so insignificant to the whole movie.

Good point Pudie - look at the Matrix team of actors, they managed to master enough of the wire work to become competant fighters, as well as learning a lot of fighting styles. It can be done, but it needs the time and investment from everyone involved, including the Studio.

Jason, take your Zoloft. I agree that Oldboy is perfect the way it is. I agree that they SHOULDN'T remake it. But in case you missed the headline to the story, they ARE remaking it. This doesn't take anything away from the original and in the end a whole new crowd of people may seek out the original after seeing the remake, good or bad. All I was saying was that if they are going to remake it, at least get someone better than Thomas Jane to star in it.

unfortunately i feel that anyone who sees the remake without any prior knowledge of the original korean version will later hear of another version and complain about how some korean guy remade oldboy.

the business of remakes is bullshit. it's cheap (not monetary cheap but like tekken3 juggling cheap), dirty and very, very unoriginal.

The hammer fight scene was not hard to do because Dae-su Oh was holding and fighting with a hammer. It was barely the fight at all that should be the focus. Go back and watch the film again. Watch the camera become one with the throbbing, living mass that is on screen. Dae-su knocks back a group of people; the camera goes down with them, you feel his force the power. The camera sways back to the left, stumbling, and you feel his pain. It is amazing, it is beautiful, and it is a spectacular scene.

And yes, it is totally bitching that Dae-su Oh, by himself mind you, fights off about 20 guys, perfectly choreographed, with a knife in his back. There is not one second of anything that beautiful in any Matrix film ever. Ever. Never.

No significance to eating the live octopus? Maybe we all watched two different movies. Dae-su Oh has been essentially dead for almost 15 years. He is barely human much less alive. He wants to know that he is alive, that he is still a person or at least something. He wants to eat something that is still living.

It of course is in the movie for a couple of other reasons. It has to be a sushi bar because that is where Mi-do works and they have to meet. Also I think it is referencing later parts in the movie where Dae-su threatens that he is going to chew down every last part of Woo-jin.

There is a significance to every last speck of anything that went into Oldboy. It is beautiful in every sense, and to think that Americans are too lazy, or too stupid, to watch the original is just sad. Maybe not sad but just obvious.

There is no reason to remake this movie. If an American can't watch a foreign film, then they don't need to watch it. Sorry.

Jason - Usually in press for a remake they do state that it is a remake. I don't see why Oldboy would be different. And if someone doesnt know that it is I just tell them it is.

Ryan - True enough about the octopus. But sushi pars are more traditionaly Asian. I think that it will probably be a hamburger or steak or something that he tears into and the girl will be a waitress. There was a lo of controversy over the whole octopus part and I think it might have been taken out(could be wrong). America wont touch eating live animals with a ten foot pole.

"I want something alive"
"Well, here's a steer"
"Thank you"
"(Suprised)MOOOO!"

Funny that that scene only really plays out with seafood...

That said, yes the live animal eating will be removed along with a lot of the...plot elements...you know what I'm talking about...cough cough...

American Version:
A Man (say Nick Jonston) is locked in a hotel room for 15 years his life is thrown away. His family dead..all he has to live for is revenge. One day he his let out. So Jonston finds those who imprisoned him and in one over the top, heavily choreographed fight scene after enother kills them in more and more qusi-graphic ways. Then he finds his captor, a man he wronged some years ago. In the final "emotionaly charged" fight scene, Nick throws the captor out the window of a skyscraper and regains his life anew.

Oh and did I mention that he has a lady friend with him for some reason that is never really explained because they droped a neccesary plot point out of the American film? Because she's there and she's Brittney Murphey, get used to it...

sigh...I'm gonna go watch Izo and bask in the knowledge that that will never be remade...

Chris: That's exactly what I'm afraid of.

I thought about this today, and despite my fears that it will be ruined, I'm actually quite interested to see how the US verion of this film turns out. I want to see how it is adapted for an American audience. Of course, your rendition is a possibility, but what if they do it right? What would that film be like?

I know putting my faith in Hollywood may be a bad idea, but from what I've heard The Ring wasn't a bad adaption-cum-remake.

I still can't see Hollywood pulling off the guard fight scene, or the grossly dark humour. I find it ironic that films like the Matrix took fight scenes into the 21st century with millions of dollars worth of CGI, then films like Ong-Bak and Oldboy come along and take them back to the old-school. One take, no wires, no CGI. (I know Oldboy had some CGI, but you know what I mean)

jane as the villian, cage as the lead. that's ok by me. jane as the lead role would upset me only because i can see cage doing such a good job with it. plus he was a big fan of the film before the remake was announced. i'm no cage fan, but this is one character i can see him going to town with. i'd prefer NO remake, but good casting will make the pain less hurtful.

Some really good points here guys, but the underlying issue is that Hollywood can't remake a movie without destroying it.

Put aside fight scenes, sushi, Asian cinema. They haven't been able to effectively remake a movie from many other countries.

For me the prime example is Vanilla Sky - previously Abre Los Ojos - although the film is a nigh on scene by scene copy of the original, the feeling and affect of the film is lost. Having watched both a few times, for me it's down to the one central pivotal scene and the sublte use of colouring through the two seperate parts of the movie, this is ever so slightly noticeable in the original so that you pick up on the difference but don't fully catch it until you get near the end and it all makes sense.

This entire feeling is lost in the remake, and there is no subtlety between the distinct sections of the movie resulting in the pivotal scene being lost slightly.

It's in the subtlety, and that's what Hollywood looses. Watch those two movies for a prime example.

Oldboy just took home Best Asian Film at the Honk Kong Film Awards. Let's not forget that it also took home 2nd place at the Cannes Film Festival, which is a pretty big deal. With that combined with the other slew of awards it carries on it's back, why would such a movie need to be remade? it was released less than two years ago... I understand why people remake good films After they've been around for decades, but I'll never get this American obsession with remaking foreign films less than two years after their initial release. I didn't really mind it with The Ring and The Grudge, because those movies blow to China, but why attempt to better a film this great, and why not AT LEAST wait a while. I'm siding with Jason and Ryan on this one, saying that this is a terrible, terrible idea. Hollywood's creative machine has fucked itself, but it doesn't matter to them as long as they can ride Chan-Wook Park's ass all the way to the bank.

Nicholas Cage blows cock, so does the Punisher guy. Fuck those idiots.

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