Oldboy Remake - Trailer and thoughts

[KOMega]

I didn't read the manga and the existing movie right now was alright.

The fighting and the grit of the main dude was cool, but the story just seemed really weird on the bad guy's part.
Like I could follow the story and what happened, but something in it just seems confusing to me...

bah, maybe I'm just uncultured.

 

[Galletea]

I suppose they could have picked a worse director to helm it, but Oldboy is the kind of movie that shouldn't be touched by Hollywood anyway.

It looks like they're deviating from

Spoiler

the whole "incest" angle in the original.

Weaksauce. This remake is gonna be a watered-down shitstain.

Dunno, I saw me some nekkid people, they might not deviate too much.

I have some amount of faith in Josh Brolin. Seeing him in "No Country For Old Men" was damn near perfect.

Then again, we also had MiB 3.......

Come on, you can't fault his acting there. It was a pretty good Tommy Lee Jones impression.
I can't see it working very well, the ultimate revenge of the bad guy was kinda the whole point, and that can't really happen here. Unless there's more than one daughter, of course.

 

[Chemical Alia]

Wow, that is one movie that does not ever need to be remade. In fact, Spike Lee should probably just go back in time and prevent it from ever being made in the first place so that movie can get out of my brain forever. I had to watch ten Dracula: Dead and Loving Its just to cleanse my mind after that one, lol.

 

[Ishigami]

Oldboy is a classic. The film is well made and not very old.
There is no need for a remake.
I'm not going to watch it.

On a side note: I think the plan is to remake the entire Vengeance trilogy. Suffice to say I'm not going to watch these either.

 

[Total LOLige]

I love it when Hollywood remake a foreign classic because everyone flips their shit, it's great. I haven't seen Oldboy yet, almost watched it a while back but I was too tired. Maybe I'll watch it tonight then come back here and tell Spike to leave it well alone. Is Oldboy better than The Man From Nowhere? That film made me cry a little.

 

[Smertnik]

Looks very underwhelming to me. Unless the trailer hides the twists it makes it seem like the encounter with the daughter is altered (since she's shown in the beginning) and the ending is implied to be far less messed up, maybe not even at all. I'm curious how "Hollywoody" the remake actually is, though. Maybe even curious enough to rent it at some point.

 

[Scarim Coral]

They actually remake it that isn't starring Will Smith?

Now that I've seen the trailer, to simply put post my opinion on it "Do not want!".

 

[Ishigami]

Regarding the twist:

Spoiler

The twist in the remake seems to be that the daughter he meets is a fake.
He still ends up sleeping with his real daughter

 

[keiji_Maeda]

I still get extremly uncomfortable whenever I think of oldboy. It was an amazing movie, but I never want to watch or hear from it again.

Where i'm from we call that Silent hill 2 syndrome.

 

[keiji_Maeda]

Wow, that is one movie that does not ever need to be remade. In fact, Spike Lee should probably just go back in time and prevent it from ever being made in the first place so that movie can get out of my brain forever. I had to watch ten Dracula: Dead and Loving Its just to cleanse my mind after that one, lol.

Oh leslie nielsen we'll scance see you like again.

 

[keiji_Maeda]

Why exactly do we need a remake again? I've seen one or two of lee's films and i liked what i saw. I can hardly call myself a fan. But like so many others in this thread i haveto profess my confusion. What is the point of making this remake? Do they really need to whitewash this movie? Will a hollywood remake really generate that much money? Is it a recipee for success? I'll gladly confess some confusion here.

What is the point?

 

[Smertnik]

Then why not start at the beginning? This is the second movie in the trilogy.

It's by far the most well known of the three, though (and arguably the best). The films are only connected by a general theme anyway.

Why exactly do we need a remake again? I've seen one or two of lee's films and i liked what i saw. I can hardly call myself a fan. But like so many others in this thread i haveto profess my confusion. What is the point of making this remake? Do they really need to whitewash this movie? Will a hollywood remake really generate that much money? Is it a recipee for success? I'll gladly confess some confusion here.

What is the point?

Money, what else? The remake isn't aimed at people who watched Oldboy, since, well, they've already watched it. And people who don't know the original won't care either way. I'd imagine the remake also has the added benefit of skipping the step of coming up with the story.

 

[ANImaniac89]

I suppose they could have picked a worse director to helm it, but Oldboy is the kind of movie that shouldn't be touched by Hollywood anyway.

It looks like they're deviating from

Spoiler

the whole "incest" angle in the original.

Weaksauce. This remake is gonna be a watered-down shitstain.

I Don't think so, I bet the girl on the TV ends up being a red herring and is not his real daughter.

 

[The Lyre]

IMO, we never needed any Oldboy movie to begin with. The original manga is great as it is, it doesn't need any big-screen adaptaion.

You're genuinely the first person I've ever seen say that they preferred the manga to the movie.

Not that that's...bad...it's just an unusual opinion.

]
As for the whole "This movie shouldn't be touched" thing, what's the damage, exactly? The original's still there. Nobody's telling you you can't watch the Korean film ever again.

The only harm I can foresee is that, in a couple years, when someone brings up Oldboy, more people around the table will have probably seen the remake than the original.

Does that really matter? It depends.

People like Spike Lee always claim they want to bring the tale to a wider audience - but if that's the case, then why not just promote the original? Does a remake 'pass it on', creating a larger following for the original, or does it just provide an alternative for people who can't be bothered to read subtitles?

I don't know, and I suppose the above is only 'damage' if you think people should see the original Oldboy.

OP - If you read this, could you leave a spoiler warning in the title or your original post? Quite a few people have made comments about the film that more or less give away the original's ending, without putting it in spoilers.

 

[KungFuJazzHands]

I suppose they could have picked a worse director to helm it, but Oldboy is the kind of movie that shouldn't be touched by Hollywood anyway.

It looks like they're deviating from

Spoiler

the whole "incest" angle in the original.

Weaksauce. This remake is gonna be a watered-down shitstain.

I Don't think so, I bet the girl on the TV ends up being a red herring and is not his real daughter.

You're probably right. Still, I don't have my hopes up for this remake. It looks like typical Hollywood "foreign film obsession" cash-grab fare, and I don't know if Spike Lee is up to the task. Don't get me wrong, he's a fantastic filmmaker when he's in his element (Malcolm X is one of my personal faves), but I think Oldboy is just a little too nuanced for his type of craftsmanship.

The last time I can remember a Hollywood remake surpassing the original was with Let Me In. It's just such a rarity for a remake to be better or even equal to the original it's mimicking. Why do they bother if they can't manage that?

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I suppose they could have picked a worse director to helm it, but Oldboy is the kind of movie that shouldn't be touched by Hollywood anyway.

It looks like they're deviating from

Spoiler

the whole "incest" angle in the original.

Weaksauce. This remake is gonna be a watered-down shitstain.

My thoughts exactly. If Josh already knows what his daughter looks like... well, so much for that part of the original.

But how do we know that it was in fact his daughter shown to him and not an imposter?

Maybe that's the twist?

 

[Quellist]

I think the biggest problem with this remake is that it seems completely unecessary

I felt pretty much the same about 'The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo' but Hollywood just cant be told i guess. Ditto for Nikita.

 

[chikusho]

I think the biggest problem with this remake is that it seems completely unecessary

I felt pretty much the same about 'The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo' but Hollywood just cant be told i guess.

Although, in the case of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, it was unnecessary mostly due to the original being rather unremarkable.

 

[Quellist]

I think the biggest problem with this remake is that it seems completely unecessary

I felt pretty much the same about 'The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo' but Hollywood just cant be told i guess.

Although, in the case of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, it was unnecessary mostly due to the original being rather unremarkable.

I'll respectfully disagree as i found it to be a cracking movie. Still the point stands either way

 

[Julius Terrell]

]I think it looks promising. I love the Korean Film, and am a big Chan-Wook Park fan, but this looks to be dark, gritty, and violent like the Korean film. Yeah, there are some changes, but I don't think it's any different from the ammount of changes the Korean film made to the original Japanese manga. Whether this is terrible, decent, or as good as the Korean film, well, I just have to wait and see. From what the trailer sowed, it looks interesting. I haven't seen any of Spike Lee's other movies, so it's kinda nice to go into it with an open mind.

As for the whole "This movie shouldn't be touched" thing, what's the damage, exactly? The original's still there. Nobody's telling you you can't watch the Korean film ever again. This is simply an alternative, just another interpretation of the same story. I mean, even the worst remakes never ruin an original film or franchise. Look at Dragonball Evolution. Yeah, it sucked, but it didn't set fire to the entire franchise (Dragonball sort of did that to itself way before Evolution.) When people bring up Dragonball, we know what they're referring to.

And whether a remake is pointless or unoriginal, it doesn't stop something from being entertaining.

Are you fucking kidding me. Just show the original in the theaters. If people are too weak-minded to handle it then don't watch it. Why can Hollywood get their movies shown all around the world, but we can't get foreign films shown here. Melting pot my ass! It's like America is basically saying to other countries that their films will never be worth showing here, and that they should be lucky that we even want to watch any of your movies at all. If we're going to show your film here, we're going to put americans in it, and butcher your ideas to suit our needs. That's what they've done to most of the other foreign films.

Edit: I feel like this is saying that Americans can't accept other cultures, but they must accept ours. What load of bullshit!!