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‘Oldboy’ Director Park Chan-wook Making English Language Debut With Carey Mulligan

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E

Expendable.

Member


Park Chan-wook, the director behind 2003′s Oldboy, is set to make his English language debut with the film Stoker. Written by Wentworth Miller (the star of TV series Prison Break), the drama stars Carey Mulligan as a young woman dealing with the death of her father and the re-emergence of her eccentric (code word for “crazy”) uncle.
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fuck yes.
 
E

Expendable.

Member
with Kim Ji-woon making his American debut with Last Stand and Bong Joon-ho teaming up with J.J. Abrams, it's going to be quite an influx!
 
D

Decado

Member
Is this some sort of joke?

Could they have come up with a less interesting premise for him to work with?

And the "writer" is a TV star?!?

Seriously, he should stick with Korean features.
 
S

stupei

Member
cmonmanreally said:
oldboy was great, but i watched thirst not too long ago and it was preeeeetty bad.
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Shut your damn mouth. Nothing beats
one vampire cutting their tongue open with a razor blade before making out with the other one.
:lol

I know everybody on GAF seemed to hate it, but I think a lot of people were taking it pretty seriously for what it was actually attempting to do. It's grindhouse style ridiculous told with a completely straight face.

I like all Park's stuff, and I like Carey Mulligan. So I'm excited.
 
S

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
:lol at the "actors can't write" squad.

Nappuccino said:
Please someone tell me he really is a good screen writer and not just an actor.
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Bachelor's from Princeton in English

The script was submitted under a pseudonym, which bodes well because it accepted on its own merits.

There was some coverage earlier in the year that seemed positive.
 
F

Femmeworth

Banned
cmonmanreally said:
oldboy was great, but i watched thirst not too long ago and it was preeeeetty bad.
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Thirst was the first movie of his I watched, it was also the first movie that I stopped half-way through with no intention of ever finishing. It's tone reminded me of The Host, which I also didn't think too highly of. However, his short in Three... Extremes was good. I still want to check out the The Vengeance Trilogy.
 
C

cmonmanreally

Member
stupei said:
Shut your damn mouth. Nothing beats
one vampire cutting their tongue open with a razor blade before making out with the other one.
:lol

I know everybody on GAF seemed to hate it, but I think a lot of people were taking it pretty seriously for what it was actually attempting to do. It's grindhouse style ridiculous told with a completely straight face.
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:lol yeah, i thought that because i went in with an expectation from the vengeance trilogy, that maybe, possibly, i just didn't get what he was going for. but that really doesn't convince me to give it another go. god at one point in the movie i thought it was changing genres, from gory horror to romantic comedy.

ninj4junpei said:
Thirst was the first movie of his I watched, it was also the first movie that I stopped half-way through with no intention of ever finishing. It's tone reminded me of The Host, which I also didn't think too highly of. However, his short in Three... Extremes was good. I still want to check out the The Vengeance Trilogy.
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the vengeance trilogy really is something special, and it's pretty much what everyone goes back to when talking about the director. like i said, oldboy is really fantastic, but you should really check out sympathy for mr. vengeance as well. lady vengeance was going for something a bit different, but i still really liked it.
 
E

Expendable.

Member
wenis said:
Where would I know Mulligan from?
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Her Oscar-nominated performance last year which she would have won for, An Education.

She is also in Never Let Me Go this year and has Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive coming out next fall with Ryan Gosling!

She is also going to be Daisy in Luhrmann's Great Gastbsy!
 
W

wenis

Registered for GAF on September 11, 2001.
Expendable. said:
Her Oscar-nominated performance last year which she would have won for, An Education.

She is also in Never Let Me Go this year and has Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive coming out next fall with Ryan Gosling!

She is also going to be Daisy in Luhrmann's Great Gastbsy!
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Yeah, now I remember...The movie thats sitting on my coffee table still packaged, need to get on that.
 
S

stupei

Member
cmonmanreally said:
:lol yeah, i thought that because i went in with an expectation from the vengeance trilogy, that maybe, possibly, i just didn't get what he was going for. but that really doesn't convince me to give it another go. god at one point in the movie i thought it was changing genres, from gory horror to romantic comedy.
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I think there's a certain level of objectivity to Park's lens. Most of the time the director will try to lead the viewer to certain conclusions about intent through the use of cinematography, lighting, etc, and while Park does this to an extent so much of his work is filmed with a certain earnestness. The camera doesn't wink to give it away when he's joking. (See: Grindhouse and all its affectations to clue you in on the joke.)

He treats all the characters and their emotions as legitimate, real, even when what they're doing is larger than life or somewhat ridiculous. There are moments in Thirst that are absolutely absurd and should be seen as such, but there is also genuine emotion. Allowing the viewer to interpret and define tone so objectively feels very unusual, though not necessarily unique. It's not too unlike other Korean directors, actually, and I wonder if it's simply very common culturally.

If you take The Host, for example, there are definitely serious and intense moments where you feel very invested in the characters, very drawn into the reality of the world, but at the same time the film can also swing wildly in the other direction, into broad and over the top physical comedy.
Such as the scene when the family first gathers together to mourn and collapses together on the ground while sobbing.
If you look at the actual filming of that scene as compared to the rest of the film, nothing overt is done to direct the audience toward one interpretation or another. All that's there is the execution by the actors and the timing, the pacing of the scene, and the camera remains wide for much of it, allowing the moment to simply play out and the audience can take it however they like. Much of Thirst plays out in the same way. The angles and cues given by the camera are more about the emotional life of the character, not the director's opinion on the sincerity or importance of these emotions or even the characters themselves.
 
N

Nappuccino

Member
Stumpokapow said:
:lol at the "actors can't write" squad.
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Yeah, well ben afleck go that award too :lol

Bachelor's from Princeton in English

The script was submitted under a pseudonym, which bodes well because it accepted on its own merits.

There was some coverage earlier in the year that seemed positive.
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Ok, this is what I wanted to hear. My faith is kind of restored. Has he written any other screenplays or tv episodes? Or is this his first venture into a produced movie.
 
S

sixteen-bit

Member
Expendable. said:
Her Oscar-nominated performance last year which she would have won for, An Education.

She is also in Never Let Me Go this year and has Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive coming out next fall with Ryan Gosling!

She is also going to be Daisy in Luhrmann's Great Gastbsy!
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Wall Street Money Never Sleeps
 
P

Peru

Member
More excited for what Bong Joon-ho is up to. Never was the biggest fan of Park, prefer so so many Korean directors to him, but still it'll be interesting to see what he does here, and I love Carey Mulligan.
 
M

meppi

Member
Dresden said:
My fellow countrymen showing filthy Westerners how it's done. Hype! Hope this doesn't fail.
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On the one hand I hope the same, yet on the other I do hope it fails miserably so he'll go back home and create many more incredible Korean movies.

Might sound weird but I don't want his work to get watered down because of how things get done in Hollywood like has happened to many others trying their hand at the US market.
 
E

Expendable.

Member
Mia Wasikowska joins! [story]

MiaWFilmstage.jpg


She’ll play an eccentric teen whose enigmatic and estranged uncle returns to the family after the death of the girl’s father. Strange things begin to happen.
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Fox Searchlight is producing.
 
D

Discotheque

Banned
Expendable. said:
Let's not talk about that. At least it sparked her beautiful relationship with Shia!
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Yo don't diss Money Never Sleeps. It was interesting.

Anyways Wentworth's got me scared but I'm still watching this one for sure. I loved Thirst too, though it is kind of trying to be like 3 films at once.
 
T

TheKaeptain

Banned
Discotheque said:
Yo don't diss Money Never Sleeps. It was interesting.

Anyways Wentworth's got me scared but I'm still watching this one for sure. I loved Thirst too, though it is kind of trying to be like 3 films at once.
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Thirst was his worst movie to date.
 
C

C4Lukins

Junior Member
I am curious to see how this turns out. I have a theory that many of the modern classic Korean and Japanese films would have been received quite poorly if they were English language films to begin with, with the exact same directors and crews but with English speaking actors. I could be completely off base on this. I hope it turns out to be amazing. I just feel that there may be a disconnect where we can appreciate some of the insanity in these foreign films, but that they may just come off as super silly without that buffer of it being so culturally foreign. At least we have the best of the best making an attempt of it, unlike some of the other Asian directors who tried to translate their works for an American audience. This will be interesting.
 
T

TheKaeptain

Banned
Discotheque said:
It's the worst of his that I've seen but if that's his worst then god-damn.
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I know. I wasn't being negative just saying it was his worst. Which means it was still better than most directors best.
 
D

Dan

No longer boycotting the Wolfenstein franchise
CaptYamato said:
Thirst was his worst movie to date.
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I know you don't mean that as a diss, but I'm a Cyborg But That's OK has to be his worst, and in a truly negative way. I quit halfway through. I also thought his contribution to 3 Extremes sucked.
 
S

Suairyu

Banned
Oldboy was good but not deserving of the praise it gets. It has made me interested in seeing more of his films, but I'm not praising him as a genius.
 
E

ElectricBlue187

Member
Suairyu said:
Oldboy was good but not deserving of the praise it gets. It has made me interested in seeing more of his films, but I'm not praising him as a genius.
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If there are any live squids getting eaten or attempting to rape your own daughter on the toilet I'm out.
 
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