There hasn’t been much news as of late that has truly surprised me, but today Deadline released a completely random bit of new that completely through me off guard. Two of my favorite emerging directors, Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado, the men behind one of my favorite horror films Rabies and the very cool revenge flick Big Bad Wolves, have just been hired by Sony to write and direct a remake of Johnnie To’s Vengeance.
While I haven’t seen the original 2009 Hong-Kong French thriller, IMDB has a pretty simple synopsis: “A French chef who swears revenge after a violent attack on his daughter’s family in Hong Kong, during which her husband and two children are murdered. To help him find the killers, he hires three local hitmen working for the mafia.”
When Hollywood looks to import strong foreign talent, especially when it comes to adapting Asian cinema, many times they get it horribly wrong. There are very few instances of good Hollywood remakes of Asian films, but when the stars of talent and film align, it’s a thing a beauty. Think Scorsese and the Infernal Affairs remake, The Departed. While Sony’s film output hasn’t been the strongest, this may be one of the smartest film pairings and decisions they could have made. Navot and Aharon understand genre filmmaking and can write quality scripts to accompany their strong directorial skills. The last thing they would want to do is ruin their Hollywood and English language debut in a market that loves revenge films. Let’s just hope Sony allows them to run wild with an R-rated thriller that’ll hopefully blow us out of the water.
After Tarantino declared Big Bad Wolves as his favorite film of 2013, you knew their Hollywood debut was coming. I can’t tell you how excited I am for these guys. They were my second ever Movie Buzzers interview (first one published) and are two of the coolest and passionate film guys I’ve met thus far. You can count on us reporting all the details on this film once more becomes available so be sure to keep this on your radar.
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