The New 'Oldboy' Looks Just as Vicious as the Original

There were a lot of worries that Spike Lee's English-remake of Park Chan-wook's South Korean 2003 cult classic Oldboy would be a watered down, Americanized version of the ultraviolent revenge tale. But if the new red-band (NSFW) trailer is an indication, Lee's version will be filled with just as many bloody bodies as the original.

There were a lot of worries Spike Lee's English-remake of Park Chan-wook's South Korean 2003 cult classic Oldboy would be a watered down, Americanized version of the ultraviolent revenge tale. But if the new red-band (NSFW) trailer is an indication, Lee's version will be filled with just as many bloody bodies as the original.

From what we can tell in this brief clip, the first trailer for the American release, they've kept the plot relatively the same: a wealthy businessman is forced to spend twenty years (it's fifteen in the original) in a mysterious prison without any explanation. Inside, he learns that his wife has been killed while his young daughter was raised without him. He's eventually released with cash and some supplies by an even more mysterious villain, who demands that the businessman figure out what he's meant to do, or face consequences. From there, it's a violent vengeance ride through cronies and bad guys all the way up to a disturbing, unforgettable finish. The first sign of blood and bad guys in this new trailer is when Josh Brolin, playing the main character, uses his trusty hammer on this baddie's head:

But the more important shot for die hard original Oldboy fans is this one, where it seems Lee has decided to simply recreate the famous hallway-and-a-hammer fight scene. In the original, the main character fights his way through a hallway littered with bad guys with only the tool to defend himself, all shot in a single, slide-scrolling take. The scene looks to be intact in the American version.

Oh, and Samuel L. Jackson is in this, too, as a bad guy with cool blond mohawk:

He doesn't meet a pleasant fate, though the same will be said for most of the characters Brolin interacts with:

Oldboy comes out on October 25.