English do you speak it? “Man from Nowhere” Remake Report

Asian cinema is such a wild experience compared the movies we coming out of Hollywood and most parts of Europe. Due to the cultural and language factors everything from personality of the characters, story telling, photo and more, virtually everything will have any number of significant differences.

Last year there was a steady stream of information regarding the upcoming ‘Oldboy’ remake by Spike Lee and the US directorial debut from ‘Oldboy’s’ director/writer Chan-Wook Park, with all the posts going up here on TMB and across the web it reignited my time being dormant love for Asian cinema. Fueled by a thirst for films I had missed or simply should see, I set out to correct this now oh-so-important problem, after going through the comments here on TMB adding 3-4 movies to my cart (great suggestions by the way) I headed over to IMDB and methodically looked through the user made best of lists with Asian cinema as the theme.
A movie that kept popping up over and over again was ‘The Man from Nowhere”. Today as I peruse the Internets for anything that may interest our readers and myself I came across the news that “The Man from Nowhere” is all set for a remake with a writer to pen the script all set to go.
Source: Deadline

UPDATE, 4:33 PM : Dimension Films acquired the rights for The Man From Nowhere from CJ Entertainment. The deal was negotiated by Ted Kim for CJ Entertainment; Andrew Kramer, President of Business and Legal Affairs and Adrian Lopez, VP of Business and Legal for Dimension Films. Keith Levine, VP of Production and Development found the project and will oversee with Matthew Signer, SVP of Production and Creative Affairs.

11:25 AM, EXCLUSIVE: Bob Weinstein and SVP Matthew Signer acquired rights to the South Korean action thriller The Man From Nowhere this year and will supervise development of an English-language remake. Weinstein personally sought out Shawn Christensen after reading the spec draft of the writer’s Abduction, which Lionsgate bought last year after a bidding war. Directed by Lee Jeong-beom, the original Nowhere follows a quiet pawnshop keeper with a violent past who takes on a drug- and organ-trafficking ring to save the child who is his only friend. The film opened No. 1 at the Korean box office in August 2010 and held the top spot for five weeks in a row, becoming that year’s highest-grossing Korean film.

While I frown on remake’s just to appeal to a western market and my wish for people to appreciate ‘art’ in all its forms not narrowing the scope of what you can enjoy on the basis of cultural or language , I do see that it just wont happen. As with Oldboy I will hope for the best and hopefully these remakes will spark enough interest that some of the intended audience checks out the original(s).

That said “Man from Nowhere was fantastic, it was horribly predictable if you are an avid watcher of movies from this region. Check out the trailer for the original:

Between the predictable plot and the cheesy borderline anime persona’s inhabiting this movie, one would think its crap. But to me none of that matters, I enjoy each and every personality, loving the story despite guessing the next step nearly every time. One or two points in the movie I paused and start speaking to my tv “are you serious?!”.  On that subject allow me to continue with this short recounting from memory of a few fun similarities as well as complete opposites when compared to Western cinema.

The Protaganist Before

This is your typical Asian Cinema Protagonist with a complex past. For whatever reason your troubled past will make you wear a lot of black while intentionally diminishing your vision on one eye. This makes you mysterious and fuck and cool as hell. Additional requirements include no friends, glimmers of a former self preferably with damn near superhuman reflexes and punching power, a general knowledge in badassery.

Western equivalent: Troubled past in western cinema does not translate into a haircut that makes you look the part of the weird kid in school. What is the equivalent? Most of you may have already figured out where I am going. Alcoholism. Think Man on Fire and Denzel Washington’s character.

The Protagonist After

Now while the aura of mystery in conjunction with the deep internal sadness may keep the audience interested for a time the transformation device needs to be introduced to move to story forward. This is usually introduced during the midway point to last half hour of the movie. Now how do we show the transformation? How do we visually break this down?

Cut the emo-bangs of course! With this major change our hero is now able to use all his insane skills in all things even remotely related to the kicking of ass. His unlikely friend is in trouble, time to shed the past and strive for redemption!

To amuse ourselves let us one more time compare with Man on Fire, here when it comes to redemption we are talking a shave and sobering the hell up. The striking similarities and complete parallels between Man from Nowhere and Man on Fire are eerie to say the least.

Unlikely friend/Person in distress

This if anything is a universal archetype at all but another striking similarity with ‘Man on Fire’ and a plethora of other movies with comparable plots.

Villain, Boss

This character is usually again very quiet, see a theme here? Cold with zero regard for human life. You will find this archetype in western and Asian cinema. Often you find the boss taking a backseat to our friend below.

The #2

Traditionally this archtype will be a mirror opposite of the boss in a few key areas, rather than calm, quiet and collected #2 will be outrageous unstable and wont ever shut up.

The Silent Enforcer

Part bodyguard, part babysitter this archetype is in many ways always the superior villain to both ‘The Boss” and “#2” due to the simple fact that unlike the previous two he is not bogged down by strange personality traits, lavish lifestyle or the responsibility at being the man at the top. Akin to the Terracotta Soldiers he remains motionless until he is ordered to complete a task by his superiors.

How to shoot any scene involving a moving car

Which is the best angle(s) to shoot a moving car? Front, back, inside, driver POV. Wrong.

This angle is one I want to say I rarely see in western cinema, top of my head doesn’t Ronin use this same angle?

In conclusion this is a great action flick, the final showdown is insane, if you find yourself without a movie to watch check out Man from Nowhere.

You made it all the way to the end of this post, let me know what you think. Was the post enjoyable? Have you seen the movie, disagree, agree with my ‘observations’? Who would you like to see as the lead?