Thursday, May 26, 2011

'Oldboy' Remake - Script Review

Based on the 'Oldboy' - Remake script by Ernesto M. Foronda & Fabian Marquez from April 21, 2005.

Summary: The script has nothing new to say and doesn't add anything to the original movie. Apparently there is no cultural gap to close in bringing this story into the american theaters, so why bother in writing and making a new film? It is justified that this project is dead!

What's it about?
Gus, a father and husband never home, gets kidnapped and caged for twenty years without anyone telling him why. When he is released Gus is out for revenge and finding out, why he was imprisoned.

The Original:
Released in 2003, the revenge thriller OldBoy is directed by Chan-wook Park and quickly hailed as one of the best movies of the year. The film goes on to win the Grand Prize of the Jury in Cannes
Only cosmetic changes:
- We see Gus by the angel wings;
- He wakes up on a church; other locations altered;
- The suicidal man at the beginning, doesn't kill himself;
- Fried dumplings are changed to Taquitos;
- The female lead is not a kitchen chef, but a delivery girl...

The list goes on like this, but there are no major differences. The script follows the original movie beat for beat. Don''t get me wrong: This is a good script, but nobody needs it. It adopts all motifs throughtout the movie like the heavy use of Voice Over or the ants as a symbol for Gus' Isolation, which leads to:

The twist and resolution at the end are the same:
I thought they would tone down the ending, as it is rather shocking and explicit, but the script follows the original movie even there. Also the fights leading up to the finale weren't toned down at all. The ending was also the big chance for the scriptwriters to come up with something new, but they decided to adapt one to one.

Blake Snyder's Save the Cat! - Movie Category: Whydunit
This category is defined by an investigation into the dark side of humanity and a shocking revelation
(I started reading "the last book on screenwriting that you'll ever need" and in future posts I want to find out, if the categories Blake Synder proposes in his book Save the Cat! are a useful method for analysing scripts or not. Perhaps they are helpful for you, my readers, too.)


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- Tristan


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