No matter the critical and financial flatline of his English-language debut, South Korean helmer Kim Ji-woon (I Saw the Devil; The Good, the Bad, the Weird) has not been made averse to our native tongue. As reported in Variety, the South Korean helmer is getting in business with Sierra/Affinity and Electric City Entertainment for Coward, which serves as an adaptation of Ed Brubaker‘s eponymous comic; David Slade, you might recall, had been attached to this very project in the fall of 2012, but you can see how far that ultimately went.
The years-in-development title, adapted by the original writer, is a heist tale concerning Leo, a safecracker who’s good at his job for desiring little in the way of conflict — no weapons, no crazies, and no deals that can’t be abandoned instantaneously. (It would seem someone’s a fan of Heat.) This code doesn’t hold up with those who’ve hired him, however (as so often happens in these sorts of tales), and conflict ensues — likely to a bloody degree, should Kim‘s earlier work serve as any indication of where this story heads.
The material could prove a fine fit for his proclivities — although the producers would say as much in their statements on this development, that drum-beating is all in the game — but a next project needs to be decided upon before this can really move forward, what with The Wolf Brigade possibly on his plate, too. No matter the feature which winds up being his next, a post-Last Stand career which isn’t visibly hamstrung is hard to complain about — even if we’d prefer Kim doesn’t get caught with a number of title that never go past some early pre-production stage.
What do you make of Coward as a project for the South Korean?