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“Sea Fog” poster (NEW) |
Oscar-winning auteur Bong Joon-ho is to join the production of the Hollywood remake of “Sea Fog,” a 2014 South Korean thriller. Bong was the producer of the original film.
American film studio Participant -- which produced feature-length titles “Dark Waters,” “Green Book,” and “Contagion” -- is in charge of the project, according to US entertainment media outlet Deadline. Matt Palmer, who made his feature debut with Netflix thriller flick “Calibre” (2018), will direct the English-language film.
Bong of “Parasite,” who served as the executive producer of the original “Sea Fog” -- known as “Haemoo” in Korean -- is teaming up with Participant and Palmer as the producer of the English adaptation. Kim Tae-wan, CEO of Lewis Pictures, which produced the Korean original, and producer Choi Doo-ho, who worked with Bong on “Snowpiercer (2014)” and “Okja (2017),” are also joining the team.
The directorial debut by Shim Sung-bo centers around a little-known tragedy that occurred in 2001. The crew members of the Korean fishing ship Taechangho allegedly threw overboard the bodies of 25 Chinese stowaways after they died of suffocation while hiding inside the ship‘s fish storage compartment, trying to enter Korea. Veteran actor Kim Yun-seok and singer-turned-actor Park Yoo-chun star in the lead roles. The film received several local film awards and was selected as Korea’s entry to the foreign-language film category of the 87th Academy Awards.
“Participant makes films that explore the realities of our time, and director Matt Palmer reveals people’s true natures by putting them in extreme situations as he did in the superb crime thriller ‘Calibre,’” Bong was quoted as saying in the Deadline report.
Meanwhile, “Sea Fog” looks set to be the third English remake of Bong‘s works, following the television series adaptations of films “Snowpiercer” and “Parasite.”
By Choi Ji-won (
jwc@heraldcorp.com)
