Last year, not long after Spike Lee‘s "Oldboy" redo was released to a critical skewering, while being roundly ignored by audiences, it was announced that Kim Jee-woon‘s brutal, bleak "I Saw The Devil" was the next South Korean film to head through Hollywood’s remake grinder. We weren’t exactly pleased by the news, but now we have a little more faith that his might have a chance of making the difficult international crossover, thanks to the man being chosen guide it.
The Wrap reports that "The Guest" duo—writer Simon Barrett and director Adam Wingard—will reteam to take on the bloody chiller. The original film follows a special agent who seeks revenge after his pregnant fiancé is murdered by a vicious, monstrous serial killer (played by "Oldboy" star Choi Min-Sik). When the legal system can’t contain the killer, the agent seeks out vigilante justice, and the pair begin a cat-and-mouse game where the line between cop and killer gets very blurry. It’s terrific stuff from Kim, brutally violent, wrenching and terrifically entertaining too. Can a U.S. remake work?
Well, with Wingard’s "The Guest" building some steady buzz before its theaters this weekend following its Sundance premiere and recent Midnight Madness screening at TIFF, he could be the guy to pull it off. He’s definitely got his own vision, and he’s one of the freshest voices in the horror/thriller genre at the moment. Still, we had equal excitement when Spike Lee took on "Oldboy" and look what happened there. Anyway, here’s a video of emo poster boy/producer Adi Shankar announcing/hyping up the remake.