The Killer (remake)
 

Woo's 'Killer' gets a new contractLee to remake hit man classic in L.A.
By Jonathan Landreth
Oct 9, 2007

BUSAN, South Korea -- Legendary action director John Woo's 1989 Hong Kong classic "The Killer" will be remade in Los Angeles with a Korean star replacing Chow Yun-fat as the hard-boiled hit man.

Director John H. Lee, a Korean-American and a CAA client, will move the action through L.A.'s Koreatown, Chinatown and South Central, said Woo's longtime producer and partner at Lion Rock Prods., Terence Chang.

"The actor has to be Korean in this version, but also, L.A. is a character in the film," Chang said in an interview on the opening day of the four-day Asian Film Market.

"In John's original version, it doesn't really matter where the film is set, except that Hong Kong has this dragon boat festival which adds a bit of local flavor. In this remake, we will use the geography of L.A. to move the story forward."

Director Lee told The Hollywood Reporter that he's excited about working on the remake of one of his "favorite films of all time."

"I ask myself why they chose me and whether I can top it," Lee said from Seoul on Monday. "But then I realize it's not about making it better. It's about making my own version. My strength is dealing with human emotions, austerity and elegance."

Chung Taewon, president of Korea's Taewon Entertainment, said that his company was also involved in the project.

Taewon Entertainment is majority owned by Fireworks International, a Hong Kong-based media company, initially funded by Dutch Bank ABN Amro.

Chang said a script is being worked on but said it is too early to reveal other details.

Lee, also at Pusan, directed "A Moment to Remember" in 2004, the most popular Korean movie ever to open in Japan, where it earned about $26 million.

The remake of "The Killer" will be the latest in a string of Asian films to cross the Pacific to Hollywood, where last year Martin Scorsese won the best director Oscar for "The Departed," a remake of Hong Kong gangster film "Infernal Affairs."

Yes! because the original sucked hard!

i kid, of course. As The Departed turned out well, there is a glimmer of hope. And nothing wrong with another ten thousand bullets on screen.

Horrible news. Why not just do a full blown American remake? Wasn't Richard Gere supposed to star in a remake of the Killer like 10 years ago?

The Gerbil Killer perhaps!

Ugh. Not excited.

Chow-Yun Fo Lyfe

Are they banking on the title? I don't understand why you would bother to remake it when you can change a few things and make it different. I suppose they needed something to sell to the investors.

Not a good idea.

:thmbsdwn: DIE

I'm not the biggest fan of the original (I thought it was just okay) but I think this is a bad idea. If people are so obsessed with remakes, why not remake bad movies that feature an otherwise good premise?

I wish they'd remake Jurassic Park page for page.

IMO, the strength of "The Killer" wasn't the story, it was the lead actor and the direction. Now we get a remake lacking both?

Pass.

word

well 'The Killer' was a remake in itself...

a changed or updated version of 'Le Samourai'...

could be something good comes of this...