Unfortunately, the powers that be have commissioned an American remake of Gareth Evans’ The Raid: Redemption. We don’t need one, and most of us don’t want one, but it’s happening anyways. A director has been set in Expendables 3 helmer Patrick Hughes, and now, casting is underway. While we don’t have any concrete information just yet on which actors are being eyed for the lead roles, we do know a bit more about what Hughes hopes to do with the film.
Speaking to Coming Soon, the director spoke at length about the project. The first thing he discussed though was how he plans on “elevating the emotional aspect” of the story:
We have a really, really interesting take on that film. One thing, obviously the original just blew my mind and I was fortunate enough to catch up with Gareth Evans in LA at the premiere of ‘The Raid 2.’ The thing that blew my mind with that film was the aesthetics and the fight sequences but also the simplicity of the premise, and there’s so much you can do with that. So our take on it is really interesting and I feel like if anything what I want to do is elevate the emotional aspect of it, and I think those are my favorite action films of all time when you can balance the action and the emotion, and what he did with his first ‘Raid’ was phenomenal.
Next, he spoke about what he has in mind for the plot:
Certainly, we’re not there to recreate that film beat for beat, with the set up we’re following a DEA task team, which was implemented by the Bush administration after September 11th when they realized that terrorism and the drug trade were so closely aligned. So they set up a DEA task team that’s six units and they work across borders and sort of act like Navy SEALS. You never read about it, you never hear about it, but they go on these missions. So that’s a really interesting take and a really nice premise and also what’s interesting on this take on it is the clash of cultures and the clash of martial arts, the fighting styles, which is something that’s going to be a lot of fun when we’ve really started pre-vizzing stuff.
So, there you have it. That’s the latest on the American remake of The Raid: Redemption. From the sounds of it, they’re still in the very early stages and though it’s not really fair to pass judgement on the project when we know so little about it, I just can’t help but to feel that it’s entirely unnecessary. Not only is Evans planning on releasing one more film in his trilogy, but there’s no way in hell that the American remake can turn out to be as groundbreaking and impressive as the original. I just can’t see it happening.
What do you think? Do we need a remake of The Raid: Redemption?