Warner Has SYMPATHY FOR MR. VENGEANCE

It may not be as damnable an offense as Will Smith and Steven Spielberg trying to remake OLDBOY, but the news coming from Variety that Warner Brothers has acquired the rights to remake Chan-Wook Park’s SYMPATHY FOR MR VENGEANCE is a little unnerving.   We don’t know much from Brian Tucker, the screenwriter WB has set to adapt the screenplay for an American update, but he received some notoriety as a playwright before making the jump to feature film spec writing.

It’s never a good sign to see a studio picking up a foreign film that has garnered some popularity with the masses, but, if they were to pick the safest, most Western-friendly film in Park’s famed “Vengeance Trilogy.”   The themes expressed in OLDBOY and SYMPATHY FOR LADY VENGEANCE are rather edgy, even for the R-rated tastes for certain, American audiences.   MR. VENGEANCE, on the other hand, is rather basic and less exploitative, making this regarded in some circles as the least challenging of Park’s trilogy of violence.

Nonetheless, in my humble opinion, anything Park touches is gold (even the lackluster THIRST, with which I had several issues) and none of his films should find themselves watered down and rolled over for general, American audiences.

Who knows?   This project may go the way of the OLDBOY remake and find itself dead before it ever even gets out of the gate.