On April 17, Park Chan-wook, a famous Korean director, announced that he would cooperate with Lionsgate, a television production company under Hollywood, to develop his masterpiece "Oldboy" into an English series, and he would personally serve as director and co-writer. "Lionsgate and I share the same creative philosophy and hope to bring "Oldboy" to the world of television," Park Chan-wook said in his statement, "I am also looking forward to working with this film and television company that focuses on bold, original and adventurous stories."
Movie poster of Oldboy (2003)
"Oldboy" is adapted from the Japanese manga "The Untamed", telling the story of a man who has been imprisoned for many years and goes through many obstacles to find his kidnapper. In 2004, Park Chan-wook's stylized work won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival. In 2013, it was remade by Hollywood, directed by Spike Lee and starring "Thanos" Josh Brolin. However, it suffered a double failure in word of mouth and box office, but it also made people more curious about Lionsgate's English adaptation of "Oldboy".
For director Park Chan-wook, this will be his next English drama series after The Sympathizer. Starring Hou Xuan-te and Robert Downey Jr., The Sympathizer just aired its first episode on HBO and Max streaming platforms last weekend. Judging from the first wave of reviews, it is still well received by the media. The series is adapted from the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name, telling the story of a North Vietnamese spy who accidentally came to the United States to live and continued to faithfully carry out his mission in the Vietnamese refugee community in Los Angeles.
The Sympathizer poster
The Sympathizer currently has an 88% freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes, a film and television review collection website, and a 78 on Metacritic, a comprehensive cultural product review website, which is considered above average. Judy Berman, a drama critic for Time magazine, commented that "both the goals set and the specific production standards of the first episode are comparable to the original novel that won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 2016." In addition, The New Yorker magazine recently launched a special article on The Sympathizer, revealing that when the novel's author Nguyen Thanh Viet wrote The Sympathizer, he actually drew some stylistic inspiration from Park Chan-wook's Oldboy.
The Sympathizer is divided into seven episodes. Park Chan-wook participated in all the writing work, but only directed the first three episodes. The next four episodes were respectively directed by Brazilian Fernando Meirelles, who directed City of God, and American Mark Muden, who directed Utopia and other dramas. In the view of some critics who have watched all seven episodes in advance, this may become a key factor affecting the overall completion of The Sympathizer.
"The shortcoming of 'The Sympathizer' is that it was directed by three people. I was addicted to the first three episodes, but the last four were relatively mediocre. The most important problem is that the last two directors lacked Park Chan-wook's bold sense of humor." Nandini Balial, a media critic who graduated from the Film Department of New York University, wrote in her online media column.
In fact, in a previous online interview with American media, Park Chan-wook said, "To be honest, I really want to direct all seven episodes myself. But the reality is, I know that with my current physical strength, this is impossible. I wrote and directed all six episodes of the previous British TV series "The Little Drummer Girl", but after finishing it, I knew that in terms of personal energy, that was the limit of what I could do." Moreover, during the production of "The Sympathizer", Park Chan-wook often had to direct the first three episodes while modifying the content of the next four episodes, which further strengthened his idea that it would be a more pragmatic approach to retreat behind the scenes after filming the first three episodes.
Next, "The Sympathizer" will be updated with one episode per week on HBO and MAX platforms until all episodes are broadcast on May 26.