By I’m always kind of iffy about remakes of foreign films, but I get it. People want to capitalize on the ideas of others, because no one can think of anything original. Fine. But in this context, it doesn’t make any sense, because Man from Nowhere is basically a South Korean version of Taken, which is one of my favorite films ever. Looking at the film from a big picture, it’s about an expertly trained guy trying to save a little girl from smugglers who kidnapping and using other little girls (also boys, in this case) for profit. The biggest difference between the two films is that the girl in Man from Nowhere is 10 and not 17.
I would also like to point out that Man from Nowhere is a very westernized film. Perhaps it’s a bit more brutal (but even that could be argued), but it plays out like an Asian equivalent of a Hollywood film rather than something distinctly foreign like Oldboy or even The Chaser (which is why I didn’t like Man from Nowhere as much as I’ve liked other Korean revenge films). Taken 2 is already being made. There’s really no reason for this to exist.
And before you say, “But hey, you liked the American remake of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo [and I did], you hypocrite!” let me remind you the American Dragon Tattoo was directed by David “I am better than pretty much every other living director” Fincher. The only person attached to this project is writer Shawn Christensen, whose only feature credits consist of that Taylor Lautner film Abduction and some thing called Enter Nowhere that currently has a 3.2 on IMDb. So your hypothetical argument is irrelevant, and this movie is going to be terrible.
[Via Dark Horizons]