Hollywood has long been in the habit of remaking movies from other countries, especially if they do something they tend to do only better. But somehow no studio ever got around to remaking The Raid, the bonkers 2011 action movie from Indonesia, which is essentially one mind-blowing shoot-‘em’-up or fight scene after another. (There was an aborted attempt in the mid-aughts.) That, finally, belatedly, is about to change.
As per The Hollywood Reporter, no less than Michael Bay is producing a Netflix redo of the movie, which concerns a rookie cop (Iko Uwais) literally fighting for his life in a tenement overrun by a ruthless mob and their neverending army of tireless killers. Bay himself won’t be directing. Instead, that job will go to Patrick Hughes, whose credits include both The Hitman’s Bodyguard and its recent sequel, The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard, plus the forthcoming The Man from Toronto, with Kevin Hart and Woody Harrelson.
Hughes specializes in action comedies, but there’s not much humor in The Raid, nor in its equally gory sequel. Once our hero enters the tenement building, every other scene that follows is a sweaty, bloody fight to death between a revolving door cast of martial arts masters. America doesn’t have a ton of those, but this remake does have an ace up its sleeve: Bay and team are moving the action to Philadelphia, the suddenly and deservedly in-vogue metropolis, whose regional charms worked like gangbusters last year with Mare of Easttown. As long as the fighters get the accents right and occasionally grab some Wawa coffee, then this should probably work out gangbusters.
(Via THR)