Korean filmmaker Kim Ji-Woon has found many fans in the States with his stylish way of tackling different genres, most recently in the brutally violent serial killer action-thriller I Saw the Devil and before that with the lightning-paced Western The Good, The Bad, The Weird and the horror flick A Tale of Two Sisters (which was bastardized into the American remake The Univited)
Director Kim is poised to make his English language debut with the action movie The Last Stand, an action-thriller starring Unknown‘s Liam Neeson as a U.S. sheriff near the Mexican border trying to stop a drug cartel leader before he escapes back into Mexico.
“If there are no problems and no complications, I’ll probably start shooting it in August or September,” he told ComingSoon.net earlier today, though he was understandably coy about who might be joining Neeson in the film. “There is a short list that we are interested in having for the film, so are we actively casting but nothing has been signed.”
He told us a little about how he plans on approaching the material:
“My concept for ‘The Last Stand’ is that it’s kind of a combination of ‘Die Hard’ and ‘High Noon’ where (the latter) was about protecting something very important that needs to be protected, while ‘Die Hard’ is a very drawn-out, long process that almost kills someone in the process, so my film will be something that has to be very well protected and in the process, we almost die protecting it in a way.”
“So if ‘I Saw the Devil’ was about a person’s extreme remorse about having lost something that they couldn’t protect,” he continued, “‘The Last Stand’ would be where someone puts their lives on the line to protect something that’s very important and it will be a bit more optimistic film in that regard.”
The filmmaker is also continuing to develop an English language remake of the 1971 French noir film Max and the Junkman, originally directed by Claude Sautet, something he’s been working on before the script for I Saw the Devil came his way.
Look for our full interview with director Kim, including some of the differences between working in Korea and the U.S., over on ShockTillYouDrop.com next week before I Saw the Devil‘s release in New York and L.A. on Friday, March 4.
