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Aw Hell No! Old Boy Suit
Logo handmade by Bannister
Column by Scott Green
Title suggested by an AICN Reader
Anime News Network has called attention to a Yonhap News Agency report that Futabasha, publisher of the original Old Boy manga, is suing the Korean film production company Show East over rights relating to the Hollywood remake. Futabasha asserts that Show East violated, and nullified, their contract when they pushed for the production of a film remake with Universal Pictures. This lawsuit, filed on Monday, was revealed at the Seoul Central District Court on Wednesday.
The planned Hollywood project had Steven Spielberg and Will Smith in discussion, with the intension to model the remake on the original Garon Tsuchiya and Nobuaki Minegishi manga rather than the Chan-wook Park directed Korean adaptation.
The Eisner Award winning manga was released in North America by Dark Horse.
Manga Spotlight:
Old Boy
Volumes 1-3
by Tsuchiya Garon and Minegishi Nobuaki
Released by Dark Horse Manga
Tsuchiya Garon and Minegishi Nobuaki's Old Boy manga has an almost second-cousin like relationship to Park Chan-wook's adaptation. If you've encountered the Park Chan-wook version, you can see the resemblance, and more importantly, you know what to expect from the manga, but the lineage and upbringing is substantially different. The manga is neither as artful or as beautifully, bizarrely disorienting as Park's version. It's not putting on a stunning visual display while playing games with the observer’s mind.
The gritty gangster potboiler could be thought of as inverted noir. Rather than investigating an external history, this Philip Marlowe is beating down doors trying to discover the truth behind his own past.
The kernel of Park's inspiration is still evident in the game being played, but with this twist, the manga is more directly screwing with the genre than it is the viewer/reader.
Rather than Oh Dae-su's 15 years of imprisonment, the manga's protagonist has spent 10 years jailed in a slummy apartment. He has spent this time, in what he compares to a monastery existence, preparing his body for a war on his unknown captors and catching glimpses at the outside world through television. Given a new suit, told that some people want revenge without death on their conscience and released back into the world, at age 34 he's been reborn as a man with no name. Diving into the Sin City of yakuza and toughs around him, it isn't log before he's judo thrown and muy thai kicked some ruffians, swilled some beer and taken a cute young woman's virginity.
So this hero knows that a third party was contracted to punish him by locking him up for a decade, but, he doesn't know who had it in for him or why. He's a scruffy guy with a dangling cigarette, an awful hair cut and the ability to handle himself in a fight, who sees a city full of bad elements, but little idea where to start. This situation boxes him ib again. Physically free, he's still a rat in a maze, stuck following the trail that his query deliberately leaves for him.
Compared to Park's Oh Dae-su, this version of the character is younger, less mentally cracked and didn't start out as a fuck-up. Instead, he was a regular guy, not given to questioning thoughts, who was harden, or in current political terms, radicalized, by his years imprisoned.
This is not a manga of Park's Old Boy. The same premise and twists yield different genre-bending results. Park's protagonist went from a drunken mess to an attention commanding urban wildman whose appearance alone immediately etches itself into the memory as the mark of a unique entity. The manga's version goes from everyman to genre convention, which isn't an uninteresting transformation. That this hero resemblances as textbook badass is part of the work's fun.
Those who are familiar with where the story is going will really appreciate how the manga is architected to throw crime noir into a maze of funhouse mirrors. Despite his street beating, the hero is not some sharp Sam Spade. As someone made into a tough guy, then spun around and made to walk into walls, he's the wrong guy for the job. But, thinking of himself as at war with the unknown antagonist, he's too personally wrong to abandon the mission. In his anger, he pulls some fast moves and thinks that he has freed himself, but rather than allowing himself to set the pace of the war, it is evident that he is putting his neck further into the noose.
The manga is kept from being dire by comic half beats. Especially given the characters exaggerated, rounded features, and especially knowing that the events are orchestrated by a half-known, half-visible force, it is possible to take the context and its events seriously and at the same time chuckled with a sort of meta-level detached appreciation. Without being gratuitously over the top, the events are striking enough that you feel for the characters, and you feel above them. Watching the hero as he's deliberately twisted around, watching yazuka in over their heads, watching scenarios such as one where a feme fatale has the hero bring her to orgasm to retrieve a clue that was fed to the her via post hypnotic suggestion, the manga is simultaneously gritty and gleefully offbeat.
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Jun 17, 2009 12:41:57 PM CDT
Thought WIll Smith was gonna star in a movie version for a secon
by pissed off and bitter
That would suck
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The planned Hollywood project had Steven Spielberg and Will Smith in discussion, with the intension to model the remake on the original Garon Tsuchiya and Nobuaki Minegishi manga rather than the Chan-wook Park directed Korean adaptation.
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After u see the movie, it's pretty creepy
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...to the remake.
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a spielberg, smith version of this movie would have been garbage.
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Nothing this lawsuit can do will affect the original Oldboy. It's in the can, and seen around the world. But stopping this remake dead in its tracks is the best news i've heard in a long time. Every headline about the remake makes me grind my teeth in fury, but now i'm just smiling:)
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YES!!! Thats two awesome pieces of news this week -- no American bastardization of Akira (aka Andrew) and no Whoreywood ruination of Old Boy! The film gods are smiling down upon us.
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I *mostly* agree that all remakers and rebooters should be killed, but some reboots are good! For example, the new BSG tv show and Star Trek movie, both of which I loved. Of course, you may not like them, in which case I respectfully disagree, but respect your opinion.
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Just my little joke...
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Fuck Will Smith. He doesnt add anything to any project he is in. He is pure movie vanilla that the masses eat up at the Cineplex.
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no you're right..never watched BSG, but ive been meaning to...its one of those shows where you dont get into it at first so you have to catch up, just that i havent yet...its in my queue though. star trek was good though. but 8 times out of 10 remakes are no good...and with imports 10 out of 10 they are watered down and 'americanized'
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Even ignoring the twinks vs bears point and the lack of liberal ( now sadly renamed as progressive) ideas the movie was shit for numerous reasons.
First too goddamned many hanging over an abyss shots.
Spock fucking Uhuru was like flames on Optimus or nipples on the batsuit.
The sad coincidence of Kirk being dumped on the same planet as Spock which also had, conveniently, Scotty. Scotty who could just enable everyone to reach the Enterprise.
Finally odd numbered trek movies suck. -
Everyone I have seen (oddly enough including the reverse remake of Johnny Handsome by Asians)sucked horribly.
Is there any Asian, or foreign film, remade by Hollywood that doesn't blow chunks? -
Most of the time of skirt dangerously close to kiddy porn. But, even without that crap, you'd still suck major assage.
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Jun 17, 2009 1:36:27 PM CDT
The Departed was an Asian Remake by Holeywood
by tell_your_mom_i_said_hi
And that was pretty tasty.
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Saw a shitty remake of an awesome movie copied shot for shot yet extremely horrible. obviously they did not get the rights and changed the ending.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQ2HP0-8wpk -
What kind of fucked up logic is it to question "random crazy happenstances" on a fucking movie (read between the lines: WORK OF FUCKING FICTION!). Everything is coincidental, if you break it down as such. Quit being such a drama queen. You should stop watching movies.
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Sorry, I was the one that told him to write "Oh hell no". I'll take the blame for not knowing the accepted spelling.
This is like a repeat of the Voltron fiasco. Somehow these Hollywood producers keep thinking they can cash in on Japanese properties without paying the creators. -
was also directed by scorsese...its awesomeness should not be taken as permission to remake every fucking film from overseas..how about a proper wide release of BATTLE ROYALE if they are so in love with imports.
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Verbinski's US remake, and I actually liked the remake better. And The Univited wasn't bad, but I never saw the original.
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Now Spielberg can focus of fucking up Lincoln.
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Let them remake every fuckin thing they want to remake. Originals, remakes, reimaginings, rehashes, rewhatever. All it's going to do is give me more choices for my entertainment. And what do ya know? I dont HAVE to watch every movie they make. You'd be surprised: this is a new concept for A LOT of people on the TB forums. People bitching about shit they CHOOSE to pay for and watch = GFY.
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... was far better than the US remake, but I agree that THE RING is better than RINGU.
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And not the good rubber kind either.
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YOU KNOW IT'S TRUE!!!
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Former talent Spielberg needs to go produce some more Michael Bay dogshit and leave OLDBOY the fuck alone.
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No more remakes by the Smith Family Robinson!!
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and the incest thing didnt shock me at all - like a lot of chink/jap/korean films it felt like the whole thing was a big joke - like one of their game shows. they cant seem to play anything, even something as violent as old boy, with a straight face.
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was excellent because Will Smith wasn't in it.
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This isn't a reboot/remake, it's actually from the comic? So what, I still say this is remake even if it isn't cos I'm sick of this kind of shit. Go do something original meatbag.
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the sky is still blue
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If they were going to "gift" Scorsese an Oscar, they should have given him one for Aviator. Aviator is far superior and deserving film
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brilliant movie, superior to the departed in every way, despite a great performance from dicaprio. robertbaron is right.if you haven't seen infernal, check it out, scorcesi and co. misinterpreted the heart of the story.
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Hope Hollywood never get it's greedy and rothened hands on Oldboy
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No way would Will Smith allow himself to play the character from the Korean film. This remake had disaster written all over it. If the lawsuit kills it, GOOD.
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I was completely unaware Spielberg and Smith were involved. It would have been PG-13 anyway, and this is a cash grab, not a stoppage. If Universal wants this, they'll pay. END OF STORY.
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Is there anything that doesn't suck in your world?
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thanks for reminding me that I need to do that Scott
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Just change the character's name and don't tell anyone.
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The Magnificent Seven
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and i can't be any fucking happier. I hope every anime/manga based or remake movie suffers red tape hell to the point of cancelling the whole production. down with all these shit remakes/adaptation, i hope they ALL fail! Any day now, we shall hear of the fall of cowbow beebop and ghost in the shell!
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heheheheh... so ummmm... yeah...
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It's a much better film. Scorsese got the Oscar in retrospect, because everyone voting knew he should have won for Raging Bull & Goodfellas, but didn't.
It's the same as Judi Dench getting an Oscar for appearing in Shakespeeare in love for all of 10 seconds, because she deserved one for Mrs Brown the year before. -
When the lawsuits were flying about blocking THE HOBBIT from going into production, the general attitude around here was a lot different...
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got Seoul.
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Woody Allen's Gozu!
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And who ACTUALLY wanted to see the producer of TRANSFORMERS and the star of I ROBOT fuck up OLDBOY? The answer to both is "almost nobody". The two situations aren't really comparable. See also: the widely celebrated crumbling of the unwanted live-action AKIRA.
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