Park Chan-wook to Begin Shooting Violent Comedy-Thriller ‘I Can’t Help It’

Korean movie maestro Park Chan-wook is conserving in movement. The internationally acclaimed auteur, 60, will start manufacturing on Saturday on his twelfth function, an adaptation of American novelist Donald Westlake’s 1996 novel The Ax. The film, which is presently going by the working title I Can’t Help It, will star Korean display screen royalty Lee Byung-hun and Son Ye-jin, with financing and distribution coming from native studio heavyweight CJ ENM. 

Westlake’s novel was beforehand tailored into French by Costa Gavras because the 2005 movie Le Couperet (The Axe). Like its predecessor, Park’s adaptation follows a person — named Man-soo this time and performed by Lee — who’s abruptly laid off by the paper firm the place he labored tirelessly for a few years. The person grows more and more determined in his hunt for brand spanking new work, finally resolving to kill his job rivals. Son will play the person’s spouse, the warm-hearted Mi-ri. 

I Can’t Help It will likely be Park’s first movie function since his critically lauded romantic thriller drama Resolution to Go away (2022). In between big-screen initiatives, he co-directed the HBO miniseries The Sympathizer, primarily based on the 2015 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the identical identify, and co-starring Robert Downey Jr. Final yr additionally noticed the Twentieth-anniversary rerelease of his ultra-violent world breakthrough Previous Boy (2003). 

Park and Lee achieved early profession success along with the thriller thriller Joint Safety Space (2000), a landmark of Korean millennial cinema (Quentin Tarantino as soon as described it as one among his favourite movies for the reason that Nineteen Nineties). Lee has since grow to be often known as one among his nation’s most versatile actors, just lately reaching even higher world visibility thanks to his recurring position because the Entrance Man in Netflix’s Squid Recreation. Along with her shiny, heat persona and wildly in style early movie roles, Son turned often known as the “Nation’s First Love” in Korea. I Can’t Help It’ll mark her first time collaborating with Park.  

Rounding out I Can’t Help It‘s cast are Lee Sung-min (The Spy Gone North) and Yeom Hye-ran (Life), who will co-star as a couple who has gone through similar unemployment travails. Park Hee-soon (The Scam) will play the paper company’s crew chief, whereas Cha Seung-won (One Extraordinary Day) seems as one among Man-soo’s job rivals. Yoo Yeon-seok (Mr. Sunshine) performs a colleague of the spouse, Mi-ri. 

CJ ENM has stated the goal launch date for the movie stays undecided. Park, nonetheless, is an everyday on the Cannes Movie Competition, held yearly in Might, having premiered 4 of his movies there.