NEW YORK — For Spike Lee, “Oldboy,” his explicitly violent, sexual, shocking new movie, is not really a remake.
“Here’s the thing — I’m not calling it a remake. I’m calling it a reinterpretation. That’s the mindset.
“It was a great film based on a Japanese manga, which is an illustrated novel,” Lee, 56, said of Chan-wook Park’s 2003 South Korean cult classic.
“Oldboy” begins as alcoholic ad man Joe Doucett (Josh Brolin) suddenly, mysteriously, horribly finds himself kidnapped and confined to a solitary cell for 20 years.
Then just as mysteriously, he’s released. Determined to discover the reason behind his imprisonment and swearing vengeance on whoever is responsible, he begins a blood-soaked journey.
Why Lee opted for a new version of a classic film, a first in a career that stretches back nearly 30 years, was simple.
“It was the story,” his list began, “the chance to work with Josh Brolin. The challenge of doing something I’ve never done before.
“Before Josh would agree to do the film he met Park and asked his blessing. He would not do the film without his blessing, and Park told him, ‘Do not copy my film. Make your own film.’
“We got to pay tremendous respect to the film and the original source, the Japanese illustrated novel, and make it our own.”
There was a bonus as well in a cast that boasts Elizabeth Olsen (“Kill Your Darlings”) and Sharlto Copley (“Elysium”).
“There’s a lot of reunions on this film,” Lee noted. “With Samuel Jackson, the first time in 22 years. He portrayed Gator in (my) ‘Jungle Fever.’ With Michael Imperioli, we go back for five or six films.”
Long acknowledged as America’s most influential black filmmaker, Lee is repeatedly queried about this year’s boom in high-profile black-themed films.
“I haven’t seen them all but every 10 years it’s the same article. After the Oscars for Halle Berry and Denzel Washington and Sidney Poitier got an honorary Oscar, there was all this talk of black films. And then there was a nine-year drought.
“Let’s have it two years back to back — how about that?”
— cinesteve@hotmail.com
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