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More Remakes: Park Chan-wook's Thirst and Bong Joon-ho's Mother

by Alex Billington
May 20, 2009

Another day, another few remakes. This time it's not just one remake, but six! Variety has published a brief update from Cannes outlining the remake status of six films from Korean directors Park Chan-wook and Bong Joon-ho. The focus is mainly on Park's Thirst, which debuted at Cannes already and is being circled by big producers for a remake. But that's not the only Park Chan-wook film being remade - Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy, and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance remakes are all in development as well. As for Bong Joon-ho, his Cannes film Mother as well as the creature feature The Host are being circled, too.

Thirst is a co-production between CJ Entertainment in Korea and Focus Features in the US, so Focus has the first look at any remake. As of today, they haven't announced anything, but it's inevitable. I hate to say it, but Thirst and Mother (I've seen both) are ripe for remakes. Both films aren't that accessible to mainstream American audiences, but remaking them would take their great stories, re-package them for American audiences, and introduce more people to the originals (which will unquestionably be better). That explanation may be confusing, but I'm trying to look at the more positive side of this news for once.

The moment we have any updates on remakes of Thirst or Mother, we'll let you know. In the meantime, we'll keep you updated on their release plans. Thirst will be in theaters this fall. Mother doesn't have a US distributor yet or release date set. If you're fans of either director, I do suggest checking out both films.

Explore tags: Indies, Movie News, Opinions

Mike G.

I thought I read that the American version of Oldboy was actually adapting the graphic novel and not remaking the film. I read that somewhere.
Fuelbot

Steven Speilberg & Will Smith were circling Oldboy from the graphic novel, but whatever. I assume they just said that because they don't want people to know they're just ripping off the idea from Park in the first place. I'm thinking a huge vocal response from every movie news site on the web is in order telling Hollywood we don't want more remakes, or at the very least want remakes that are well done. This shit is ridiculous.
Fuelbot

Steven Speilberg & Will Smith were circling Oldboy from the graphic novel, but whatever. I assume they just said that because they don't want people to know they're just ripping off the idea from Park in the first place. I'm thinking a huge vocal response from every movie news site on the web is in order telling Hollywood we don't want more remakes, or at the very least want remakes that are well done. This shit is ridiculous.
Jason K

they need to leave Oldboy alone, which they won't, the studios will butcher it
TheotherBluth

I don't see the point in remaking the vengence trilogy. Is speilberg really gonna go there? Or will he change stuff to make it more pallatable to mainstream america. Inturn ruining good movies. Let foreign films be foreign films, If people want to watch them they'll just have to read the fucking subtitles.
NeoN247

Makes me laugh... the original oldboy was adapted from the book so ummmm... the remake is gonna be exactly the same. Then again its not all bad, i _would_ pay to see will smith choke on an octopus lol!
Mr. Sifuentes

Don't touch Oldboy! Original heard it was gonna be De Niro but it doesn't matter. Leave Oldboy as the cinematic classic that it is.
jean luc

ha ha i love remakes, who wants to go to the cinema and read, thats what magazines are for. also would love to see remake of irriversible starring tom hanks taking on the role as la tenia! also remake city of god with cuba gooding jnr and ja rule, then amelie set in l.a. featuring mischa barton and belle de jour with sharon stone and jules et jim with owen wilson, ben stiller and jennifer aniston!!!!!!! Grrrrrrrrr. Why dumb down amazing films for the uncultured masses who cannot be bothered to learn to read and enjoy something in the way it was meant to be! it seriously grinds my gears when films are being "circled" to be remade days after their world premier! Hollywood needs to fuck off!
lost

why do hollywood like to take everything asian and cast white american actors to play the lead hollywood need to stop the maddness
Squiggly

I was just thinking today about remakes and how much it pisses me off that they get remade for US releases. Why? Do Americans prefer the sub-par films? Maybe. Do they dislike reading? Well, considering the fact that subtitles are only on screen for a little while and the fact that a lot of the more ignorant citizens can't read that fast... there you go. This is one of the many things that makes foreign populations look down at us as simple-minded americans. In Europe and just about every other country there are a ton of well-made little films that do rather well internationally. People here have no idea that other countries have thriving film industries, and more importantly, no one here apparently seems to give two shits one way or the other. What's worse, it deprives the rest of us of the real films. So many foreign films are re-made into crappy dumbed-down american versions and then the original is replaced at retail with the sub-par re-make. It can be a pain in the ass to find a lot of these films on DVD, but the US version is generally plastered all over the place. Thank god the internet came along and made this shit so much easier. Not to mention what a bunch of assholes it makes us look like when we're too lazy to read subtitles. Every other country in the world uses subtitles in their theatrical releases of foreign films (with the exception of Germany and France that I'm aware of, which is equally fucking annoying when your only import options are one or the other... damn germans and their crap DVD releases...). It pisses me off that people here are so willingly ignorant of these things. It really is just a small part of America's overall attitude of "we're the best and no one else matters". Most people here genuinely agree with that statement, and it pisses me off so much sometimes I seriously consider leaving. Everything from politics and global relations to the way people view entertainment here is tainted with that idea that "if it's not from the US, then it's shit", while at the same time these very same people are buying up mountains of foreign goods from giant foreign-owned corporations without even thinking about it, putting themselves out of business and then wondering why the economy is so fucked right now. If people here would stop encouraging this sort of stupidity, perhaps this country would start looking up for a change.
movieboy

so when are we going to see a American version of Battle Royale starring Zac Efron and Miley Cyrus LOL and another thing who remembers this crazy internet rumor about Sam Raimi remaking House of Flying Daggers LMAO
wm

I love how they show the films at Festival's and boom, remade so people don't have to read subtitles.
Dan W

This is SO stupid. We don't need remakes anymore! Especially ones that are not old films. God damn this is effing anoying
M

No No No,!!!!!! do not remake any of Bong Joon-ho or Park's films!! Why does Hollywood have to remake everything, they ran out of English so now they going to remake Korean??? These two directors have worked hard to be where they are and now of course Hollywood wants to remake it to make it look as if they did it. Old Boy was a very interesting and awesome movie, and should not be remade!!! I had no problems reading the subtitles and others shouldn't either. This is pathetic! I am sick of Hollywood not having their own things, they need to learn to be original. Is there nothing Bong or Park acan do to prevent these remakes?
dave13

wait, The Host? why? that just got made 3 years ago, and it was great. screw you Hollywood. get your own ideas.
Squiggly

@ Movieboy: They've already sorta re-made Battle Royale. They called it "Condemned" and it's about prisoners instead of school kids, but the plot is basically the same. Island. Devices that will kill them. Fight to the death. It's less a re-make than a blatant rip-off, but why they couldn't just show the fucking original is beyond me.
http://cinemabeacon.blogspot.com/ Nekrosoma

When the remake hits the screens before the original, is it still considered as remake?
lui

hollywood fuck off from wooks movies leave them be.
Thomas

Hollywood need to stop this damned rape of original movies. I hate them.
Frame

I'd like to see Hollywood remake Riki-Oh. Let's see them go as far as that movie did: too far.
http://www.cyworld.com/paulyahn Paul Y. Ahn

for the first time in my life, I actually agreed with everybody posting here ... until #20
SLee

Please stop remaking good movies into mostly bad movies. I beg of you, just stop now. They don't need 'remaking'.
http://www.myspace.com/kevjohnphotography kevjohn

meh. I actually don't mind remakes as much as everyone else here apparently does. At the very least it'll raise awareness for the original films. You know how many people I know have even HEARD of "Old Boy", let alone seen it? One. A single person that I know in meatspace and converse with on a regular basis has seen that film. And he didn't even like it! He's one of those anti-subtitles types. haha. So if S. Speilberg remakes it starring Will Smith or Johnny Depp or Damon Wayans or Groundskeeper Willie, good for him and good for the original "Old Boy".
http://www.cyworld.com/paulyahn Paul

you must live in a rural area in the midwest or the south, kevjohn
f. booth

I love Bong. I absolutely LOVED Tokyo! I thought all three parts were surreal yet humane and quite compelling, but Bong Joon-ho’s was the best. You can order the dvd on the official website: HTTP://BIT.LY/TOKYOTHEMOVIE