Spike Lee’s Oldboy is a remake I can get excited about. A cast that includes Josh Brolin, Elizabeth Olsen, Sharlto Copley and a hammered Samuel L. Jackson is reassuring. The question that lingers is just how much of Park Chan-Wook’s excellent original film (itself based on a Japanese manga) is being culled for plot. At the center of that question is Elizabeth Olson’s character, Marie. If you’ve seen the original film, it’s not hard to guess the nature of her character. If you haven’t, well, I don’t want to spoil it here.
But in a conversation with Empire Online, Olsen sheds some light on the approach this remake is taking:
“It’s not trying to redo the film – it’s coming at it from a different view,” she goes on to say. “As well as focusing on the primary source of the Korean film, for our film there’s also the Japanese Manga, so we’re using the primary source of the illustrated novel, really.”
“I like to compare it to Let Me In and Let The Right One In,” adds Olsen. “Those aren’t the exact same films, but they’re just a different take on the same story.”
For all the work it did in trying to distance itself before release, Let Me In ended up being pretty similar to Let The Right One In. The “We’re going back to the source material,” approach seems to be a fairly familiar logline in remakes these days. But if we’re talking directors who can put their own unique stamp on Oldboy, Spike Lee would be near the top of that list. Lee could keep the plot beat for beat and still produce an entirely different work if only because he’s such a remarkable (if uneven) filmmaker.
Source: Empire via Coming Soon