Friday 6 December 2013

Oldboy Remake

Reading the reviews of the remake of Oldboy, it does seem as though the film has tanked and i'm quite glad about that.
Anyone who has ever seen the South Korean version will now that it was going to be pretty much impossible to improve upon, every actor and actress was perfect, even the octopus in the restaurant scene hammed it up as it thrashed and curled its tentacles in desperation as it vanished into the actors mouth.
The only reason i can think of for a remake is because Western audiences dislike reading subtitles and a bit of arrogance that says it was a good film but Hollywood can improve upon it. Seems they couldn't and never.
I'm not even going to bother watching the remake, partly because the South Koreans done it so well the first time around that it can only be an anti-climax and partly because having seen the original, i know the twist at the end.
I'm not sure why Oldboy was chosen from the long list of fine Asian movies being churned out that could have been remade, when the whole point of the film depends upon not knowing the sideways jerk at the end, Spike Lee chose this one.
Anyone who likes these type of films and would pay to see it at the cinema has probably seen the 2003 original and therefore knows the last 10 minutes which changes how you viewed the previous hour and 50 minutes of it.
Just seemed a bit pointless really and Spike Lee or whoever decided an American version of Oldboy was a good idea should be locked in a room for 20 years and have their teeth pulled out with a claw hammer.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't know anything about Oldboy. what I did notice is another reference to violence - teeth pulling with a hammer.

i advocate gun ownership all the time and when i do you act like I'm crazy and evil, but i don't make regular suggestions of people suffering torture and miserable deaths...

q

ps - look at the "prove your not a robot thing" i got for this comment: coffin ntoheop. I'm not jloking it really had coffin in it!

Lucy said...

Because you haven't seen Oldboy you wouldn't get the reference to pulling their teeth out with a claw hammer which is a recurring theme throughout the film.
When you advocate gun ownership it is crazy and evil. Your robot thing is an anagram of 'Coffin to open' which makes me think that it has seen your previous comments on guns.

Anonymous said...

you think the NSA is running these blogs or the robot thingy? I mean, I know they are watching, but are they managing it?

q

ps - based on that, I think i'll pass on watching Oldboy


pss- uh oh - just got this robot thing "watching you"

Lucy said...

You know how you know when your telephone is bugged because it does a quiet click thing when you pick it up, well lately whenever i have gone to your blog it has been doing a strange flashing thing where it loads, then very quickly, it flashes. If you were not paying attention you wouldn't notice it but just to be safe you had better not post anything about Obama for a while. Have you noticed any black vans with blacked out windows in your rear view mirror lately?