The original film was released on Blu-Ray last year and tells the story of former top special agent, Tae-Sik Cha (Bin Won) who lives a quiet life as a pawnshop owner. But when his upstairs neighbor involves him with drug-dealing gangsters and is abducted along with her young daughter, Cha must call upon his dormant, lethal skills to try to rescue them and exact a brutal revenge on the villains.
Despite the plot sounding eerily similar to THE PROFESSIONAL, this film does stand on its own as a solid action movie. THE MAN FROM NOWHERE picked up a ton of awards when it was originally released and the Weinsteins seem to think that will replicate well for American audiences.
South Korea has had a great surge in film-making over the last twenty years. OLDBOY, I SAW THE DEVIL, TAE GUK GI, and SHIRI are just a few that jump out at first thought. I am not a fan of just remaking Asian films for American audiences when you already have a quality movie to begin with, but, if handled properly, this could be one of the better results.
Check out the original Korean trailer below.