First trailer for Spike Lees Oldboy remake: watch now

The first trailer for Oldboy , the Spike Lee-directed remake of the Park Chan-wook, thriller, has emerged online.

Lifting the plot from the 2003 film (which was itself based on a Japanese manga), this one sees Josh Brolin’s Joe Doucett kept in captivity for 20 years (five years longer than his counterpart in the original), before being released. The reason for his release is as much of a mystery as the reason for his imprisonment, so he sets out on a mission to uncover the truth.

Anyone familiar with the director Park’s film will be aware that his journey leads him to some pretty dark places, which is why the recently released poster caught us off-guard with its bright colour scheme and a bold symbolism.

Watch the first trailer for Oldboy below now:

Pretty full-on, eh? And there are definitely some striking visual echoes of the original film, not least in that corridor brawl...

Brolin is joined by an eclectic cast including Elizabeth Olsen, Samuel L. Jackson and Sharlto Copley.

Oldboy opens in the US on 25 October 2013, before opening in the UK on 6 December 2013.

Matt Maytum
Editor, Total Film

I'm the Editor at Total Film magazine, overseeing the running of the mag, and generally obsessing over all things Nolan, Kubrick and Pixar. Over the past decade I've worked in various roles for TF online and in print, including at 12DOVE, and you can often hear me nattering on the Inside Total Film podcast. Bucket-list-ticking career highlights have included reporting from the set of Tenet and Avengers: Infinity War, as well as covering Comic-Con, TIFF and the Sundance Film Festival.