A Remake of Ji-woon Kim’s A Bittersweet Life in the Works

Ji-woon Kim’s “A Bittersweet Life” is one of those Korean gangster movies (Korea makes about a billion of these a year, give or take a couple of million) that really convinced me the Koreans were still making great movies that didn’t involve cute girls dying of unexplained medical maladies. Now it appears as if Hollywood is set to remake the film with the approval of CJ Entertainment, the movie’s original backers.

In the South Korean original, Byung-hun Lee (soon to be seen in Hollywood flicks “I Come with the Rain” and “G.I. Joe”) plays a suave gangster who is marked for death by his own crew. He’s buried alive, but somehow survives and comes back to exact some bloody revenge on his old boss. Much bloodletting ensue.

The film co-starred Min-a Shin, Yeong-cheol Kim, and Jeong-min Hwang, and was written and directed by Ji-woon Kim (”A Tale of Two Sisters”, as well as the recent “The Good, The Bad, and the Weird”).

News of the remake comes via an THR article talking about the movement by Korean film companies are making into the international market. No word on who will be doing the remake of “A Bittersweet Life”, or potential storylines and stars.

Below: A scene from the original “A Bittersweet Life”. See, this is when you know your day is not gonna be so hot.