A trailer for Kim Ji-Woon‘s I Saw the Devil has popped up online, courtesy of /Film. Kim, who previously helmed The Good, the Bad, the Weird, has a solid cast lined up for this promising thriller. Lee Byung-hyun, who also starred in Kim’s aforementioned film, will be featured alongside Choi Min-sik, who has gained some prominence for his performance as Oh-dae Su in the cult hit Oldboy.

The trailer embedded below is completely without subtitles, so for those who are suspicious of plot revelations, this is the trailer for you. For the readers who want a little bit more insight into the story, feel free to read the synopsis:

Kyung-chul is a dangerous psychopath who kills for pleasure. He has committed infernal serial murders in diabolic ways that one cannot even imagine and his victims range from young women to even children. The police have chased him for a long time, but were unable to catch him. One day, Joo-yeon, daughter of a retired police chief becomes his prey and is found dead in a horrific state.

Her fiance Dae-hoon, a top secret agent, decides to track down the murderer himself. He promises himself that he will do everything in his power to take bloody vengeance against the killer, even if it means that he must become a monster himself to get this monstrous and inhumane killer.

What did you think of the trailer?

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Over the past week I have seen some excellent films at the NYAFF, everything from epic kung-fu fighting in Ip Man 2 to psychedelic madness in Blood of Rebirth and heartfelt comedy with amazing Japanese freestyle rapping in 8000 Miles. But nothing could have prepared me for Confessions, easily the most brilliant and disturbing film I’ve seen all year. This film is like nothing you ever experienced, it’s a whirlwind of emotion wrapped in a tightly knit package of suspense, mystery and murder. That said, it’s also one of the more depressing films you’ll see, in that the subject matter its dealing with is the bizarre suicide culture that permeates in Japan, particularly in young teens. Director Tetsuya Nakashima (Kamikaze Girls, Memories of Matsuko) uses interesting visceral cinematic techniques that will leave you dazzled and distraught by the sheer escalation of a simple day in a school classroom. Read the full story

The successful video game series Mass Effect is getting film treatment, Heat Vision reports. Legendary Pictures, who picked up rights to the Electronic Arts-BioWare game, is once again teaming with Warner Bros to produce and distribute the film. I Am Legend and Thor screenwriter Mark Protosevich will take on script duties. Read the full story

With Edge of Darkness coming out this weekend I thought it would be nice to introduce this weekly Top Ten list with my Top Ten Revenge Films.

Revenge movies are actually very common and if you look closely at a movie you can find a lot of revenge subplots in most movies.  However, for this list a film qualifies only if the main purpose of the film is to enact revenge. No minor character revenge subplots allowed here or any of that. Check out the list below. Read the full story

Warner Brothers has acquired the rights to Chan-Wook’s Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, the first film in his revenge trilogy, which also includes Oldboy and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, in that order. Oldboy almost got made into an American film, directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Will Smith, and Lady Vengeance has been optioned here and there, without much movement in the way of production. [Film School Rejects]

Writer Brian Tucker (Broken City) has been hired to pen the adaptation and power-producer Lorenzo di Bonuventura has jumped on the project – he’s one of the dudes behind G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Oh yea, and Imagine That.

With Park still making strong, insightful films (Thirst) while Hollywood struggles with original material (see the recent di Bonuventura-produced films), remakes like this (get ready for Let Me In) make sense. To an extent.

Putting a guy like di Bonuventura on a project like this suggests its bastardization. Which is not to say the guy isn’t a good producer (he knows how to make hits for the most part), but rather one who’s more business than art. And Park’s film are most definitely smaller, passionate studies of emotion despite all of the bloodshed usually involved.

It’s as though Hollywood’s throwing two different meals into a crock pot and heating it up all the way, hoping the result will be appetizing.

I hope so too, I guess.

What do you think of Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance as an American remake?

A story at /Film says that Steven Spielberg revealed in a press release today that he will be directing a remake of the 1950 Jimmy Stewart film Harvey.  Having finished principal photography on Tintin, many assumed his next project would be his proposed Lincoln biopic or an Oldboy remake, but he has chosen this as his next project, to be co-distributed by 20th Century Fox and Dremaworks.  Screenwriter Jonathan Tropper has written the movie’s script.

The story of a mild-mannered man who claims to see a 6-foot tall rabbit, Harvey was originally a stage playon Broadway and adapted twice for television, one of which according to IMDb starred Stewart again in the role of Elwood P. Dowd.  The same story claims that the movie will begin shooting as soon as early 2010.  Already there seem to be rumors of Tom Hanks taking over the role, making this the fourth collaboration between him and Spielberg, after Saving Private Ryan, Catch Me if You Can, and The Terminal.

I don’t know if I’m warm to the idea of this.  I’ve never seen the original film, but I would rather see Spielberg do Lincoln or even the Oldboy remake with Will Smith.  That being said, I always have confidence in him to make a good film, so I shouldn’t remain excessively pessimistic about this just yet.

What do you think of Spielberg directing a Harvey remake?

Anything Park Chan-wook creates is guaranteed to be unique, brilliant, and very twisted at a minimum. Well, anything that isn’t I’m a Cyborg at least. Park’s newest film titled Thirst is a vampire romance-erotic-thriller-dark comedy-drama –  yes, that is a lot of adjectives — inspired by the 19th century French novel by Emile Zola titled Therese Raquin. Park creates a uniquely Korean, and uniquely Park, vision of the vampire mythos and asks the audience to explore the dilemma of a Catholic priest discovering himself having a thirst for blood and the moral and spiritual crisis that would develop.  Park delivers on the elements you would hope but definitely falls short of masterpiece quality like Oldboy or even that of Lady Vengeance. Heavily bloated with a narrative that often loses itself much less the audience, Thirst desperately needed another trip through the cutting room. It crawls when it should be running but luckily brings it back home before losing the audience completely. As negative as it may sound the positives definitely outweigh the negatives and another volume has without a doubt been added to the dark and twisted Zeitgeist of Park Chan-wook film.

Check out the full review after the jump >>

Today we have the trailer for Oldboy director Chan-wook Park’s next film, Thirst. The film stars Kang-ho Song, from The Host, as a well respected priest who is turned into a deranged killer seeking the blood of his victims after a medical experiment goes wrong. No subtitles yet, but the visuals speak for themselves. Check it out below:

It looks like we will be getting another great vampire movie after last year’s Let The Right One In. Oldboy is also one of my favorite films of all time and I love the rest of the trilogy. This is looking to be just as good. The film is expected to hit theaters this year in South Korea, with a US release unknown.

What do you think of Thirst?

Back in November we reported that the Steven Spielberg-directed remake of the 2003 Chan-wook Park cult classic Oldboy was in talks to be made.

WAMG reports Will Smith recently spoke with MTV news, and he had this to say about the original Manga’s dark and violent nature.

“It’s the thing that Steven was attracted to.  We’re working from the comic and we haven’t done anything other than talk about it. So we’ll see what happens, but he’s not going to do anything that would be less than stunning.”

I’m desperately hoping they can’t come up with something ‘stunning’ and they decide to scrap it. I can’t imagine them trying to recreate the uniqueness of one of my favorite films ever. I would much rather them focus on different projects then waste their time with this.

What do you think of an Oldboy remake?

Slashfilm reports Steven Spielberg and Will Smith are in talks to collaborate on a remake of Chan Wook-Park’s Oldboy.

Spielberg has been looking for an opportunity to work with Smith for a few years now, and this just might be the project. DreamWorks is in the process of securing the remake rights, and Spielberg is on the search for a screenwriter to develop the project. The project was originally set up with Fast and Furious director Justin Lin. In the 2003 South Korean film, a man named Dae-Su is locked in a hotel room for 15 years without knowing why or who is holding him captive. He is suddenly released, given money, clothes and a cellphone and is sent on journey for revenge. The film won the Grand Prix at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival.

Oldboy is one of my favorite films of all time. I knew a American remake would be inevitable. I’m glad Spielberg is possibly attached instead of Fast and Furious director Justin Lin, but WHY Will Smith. WHY. I really hope they don’t screw this up.

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