By now you’ve heard plenty of high praise for THE RAID (aka THE RAID: REDEMPTION), which is hitting theaters in limited release on MARCH 23rd. I personally loved the thing, and it’s destined to gather a massive following once the rest of the world gets an eyeful of it.
Of course, as it’s in Indonesian, it is already in the process of being remade (by Sony, which will also release the original). Even though this flick is as modern and audience-friendly as you can get, because it has subtitles it obviously needs to be Americanized. I don’t see the point, but that’s just me.
Yesterday I had the extreme pleasure of talking to THE RAID’s writer-director Gareth Evans. He’s on board the remake as an executive producer, so of course I wanted to know what he thinks about it…
“I’m involved in it in terms of as an exec-producer, but beyond that I’m not really involved; I’m not going to be directing it, I just think I can’t really bring anything fresh to it. For me it’s one of these things where I think the script and storyline are pretty streamlined in the original, so I think there’s room for improvement, there’s room where they can take it in a slightly different direction. I’d rather they do that than make a direct copy of it.
“Honestly, for me it’s kind of exciting. It’s a unique opportunity for me to see how somebody else interprets the source material. I think the only way it will work really well is if whoever ends up directing it is given that same kind of creative freedom that I had on mine.”
Evans went on to say that they’re bringing in the fight choreographers from the original to help design the action. Brad Inglesby is currently writing the screenplay.
As far as a sequel to THE RAID goes (which we learned a few days ago would be called BERANDAL), Evans is prepping it at the moment.
“We’re going to start shooting in January of next year… We’ve already done a lot of the choreography for some of the fight scenes, but we have a few more elements that we’re going to add to it now, because we might get a slightly better budget, so we can ramp up some of the action as well. So it’s going to be insane.”
I can only imagine… Keep your ears open for the full interview with Evans, it will be a part of the next AITH Podcast. Also be sure to check out THE RAID when it opens on MARCH 23rd, you won’t regret it!
A Korean hottie! Hey it’s a Korean flick!
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