f13.net

First trailer is out for Spike Lee's remake.

http://movies.yahoo.com/trailers/red-band/oldboy/

I like Brolin a lot, but I'm just... not sure that I want this remake to exist. The original is just Too Good.

Um.  No.  Just No.

Let Me In!

This thread prompted me to search down the original, because I had never heard of it or seen it, and holy fucking shit, what an awesome movie.

Fucked up the storyline completely and wanted an excuse to show 9/11 footage again.  What a dick.

At some point, I'm going to watch the original... since we have things like Netflix and subtitles that let me see movies from other countries. Why the fuck would I want to see Spike Lee's version of what is likely a better movie?

I've heard a lot of good things about Oldboy, but haven't gotten around to watching it.  Somebody help me here though, some of the vague descriptions I've been given about it (since I didn't want to be spoiled) made it sound sort of torture porn'ish.  Is that true?  Is there much gore/torture?

I did the same, and felt the same.

Then I watched the trailer for the remake again and see they copy some stuff scene for scene, and then completely mess up one of the most important things that make the original so twisted and awesome.

No gore.  A little bit of torture.

There is some torture, but even then that's... not really what the movie is.

It's not, say, like "Saw" or "Hostel", or better yet, "Guinea Pig" to get more into the realm of this cinema. (Yes, GP is Japanese, of course.)

Also, if you haven't heard of GP, don't seek it out. It's fucking terrible.

It's a bloody revenge play.  As cool as Brolin is, there's no reason this remake should happen.

And seriously Samuel Fucking Jackson?  Really?  I can only imagine how much they'll Americanize the story.

It's going to be shit, because the Park version is just so damn good. That said, it's kinda far from the original Japanese source material and that's ok.

Maybe Spike can win his Martin "Oh, so you just wanted me to make a vastly inferior remake of an excellent movie from Asia?" Scorcese oscar.

The other two movies have a lot more torture if I recall correctly. But none of it is torture porn bullshit ala Hostel.

I disagree with "vastly" in connection with The Departed. I really liked that movie. Plus it wasn't "want me to make that" with Scorcese... that was Scorcese's project, he loves the original.

Yeah, but it was nowhere near as good as Infernal Affairs.

Well, I was mainly arguing against using "vastly inferior", but I very much hold Departed up there. it's been a long while since I've watched Infernal Affairs to be fair. Though, it's also been years now since I've seen Departed.

I thought that the Departed was a good remake worth watching with enough of a new spin on the original movie (but the original and its sequel were still better though not sure about the third). As to Spike Lee doing a remake of Old Boy I just don't see it (whereas Scorsese sounded like a good director for an american version of undercover cop vs crime organization  movie)

The Departed was vastly inferior to Infernal Affairs. The fact it's good is a testament to how goddamn amazing Infernal Affairs was.

Everything that's great about Departed is from Infernal Affairs, and everything that's worse is script changes, acting, editing, and direction. Giving Scorcese an Oscar for making a film worse with every single decision he helped make was absurd. I don't think Spike Lee could be a worse choice for making Old Boy than Scorcese turned out to be for Infernal Affairs... but it'll be rough enough if he's half that bad.

oops, wrong thread.

ARISE!

So I finally watched the original Oldboy. Holy fuck, but that was an awesome, incredibly well-done movie.

The remake, however... I can't imagine any scenario where an American film company allows a remake that is anything other than a pale, shambling zombie of a remake that bears no resemblance to the original. With Spike Lee directing it, I'm quite sure it will suck all forms of cock.

I agree with HaemishM. :heartbreak:

Wait, did they really remove all traces of the sick twist at the end?  :uhrr:

We don't know yet, but my bet is on probably. This IS America.

Of course they are.  How else will they entice you to buy the DVD/Blu-ray multiple times if not by releasing a special Uncut edition featuring the original ending that the MPAA wouldn't let you see!!  But not until 90 days after the normal edition DVD/Blu-Ray are released.

I refuse to patronize this terrible idea.  I will, however, discuss how terrible it is.  Oldboy did so many things correctly, and these are all things that no American director/studio would ever do.

Ah crap now I know there is a twist at the end!  Damn you Dominator!

Stolen art fiasco: http://juanluisgarcia.com/dear-spike-lee/

From https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6811060

That's really scummy, if true.

I feel fairly certain that it is. Both because that's how a lot of media companies operate these days and because the skinny is that Lee's done stuff like this before in particular.

Okay I finally watched the remake, it is available on Netflix streaming if anyone is interested.  Maybe I am not as artsy as the rest of you fine folk but I enjoyed the remake more than the original.

I'd not rewatch the original since it was pretty disturbing as well as well-done and whatnot.  Were there a lot of changes done to the white-people version?

Slight change to the end which I think made the motivations for the antagonist a bit more believable.  I did find it just enough less disturbing than the original to be mildly enjoyable and I can see how that might destroy the whole point of the movie for most people.  Over all it was fairly true to the original, it felt more polished but that might just be the language/culture barriers being removed.

I enjoyed it.

I just watched it last night. Enjoyed it as well. Brolin is no Choi Min‑sik. But then, Park Chan-wook is no Spike Lee. It's tough, I tend to enjoy Asian originals to #whitepeoplemovies (yea yea, Spike Lee is black, but he stopped Doing the Right Thing years ago), but in this case, I think I liked the latter just as much as the former but for different reasons. The new one, hammer fight scene aside, I think is more successful as a piece of cinema. But the old one was far more gritty.

Either way, I waffle back and forth on Chan-wook as his best work was probably Cut (part of Three Extremes) and even then it wasn't as good as Fruit Chan's Dumplings.

Anyway, short version: Critics are wrong on this one. It is a very good movie.

Edit: Actually, to put my opinion of the original more succinctly - everything Chan-wook does strikes me as low-rent Miike shit. It's not that he's bad, it's just so close in genre to Miike's stuff that I can't help but wonder what a better director would do with the source material.

Saw the remake. I thought it was not nearly as good as my memories of the original. The long fight scene, of all things, was awful awful shit in the American version. How did that happen? It was less intense, less interesting and it made zero sense because this is the land of guns.

Brolin was amazing. The young Olsen was good. I imdb both of them and they are both already part of the Marvel universe, pretty awesome.

Its not dreck by any means and contains some cool stuff its worth watching on netflix instant IF you have seen the original.