Exciting Danish auteur Nicolas Winding Refn has revealed plans to shoot his Bangkok-set neo-Western “Only God Forgives” this summer in Asia.
The previously announced film centers on a Thai police lieutenant whose rivalry with a gangster sees the two settling their differences in a Thai-boxing match with Winding Refn taking on writing, producing and directing duties.
The picture will be yet another gear-change for the filmmaker who followed his renowned “Pusher” trilogy with last year’s part-biopic, part stylized theatrical nightmare “Bronson” — about notorious English criminal Charles Bronson — and the upcoming meditative Viking tale, “Valhalla Rising,” which made the festival rounds last year.
But where does this put Winding Refn’s neo-noir “Drive” with Ryan Gosling? Last we heard, the filmmaker was hoping to imminently move into production for the “stunt-driver-by-day, getaway-driver-by-night” story though nothing has been heard of it since. Gosling is currently shooting John Requa and Glenn Ficcara’s untitled rom-com with Steve Carrell, Emma Stone and Julianne Moore, and with the summer looming, it appears “Only God Forgives” will certainly go in front of the cameras first.
Hopefully Winding Refn, who recently dropped the Harrison Ford-led “The Dying Of The Light” and “Jekyll” with Keanu Reeves, finds time to return to “Drive.” A collaboration between the uber-talented Winding Refn and Gosling, one of this generation’s finest actors, sounds far too good to pass up, and we’d hate for such a promising project to fall by the wayside. The loss of “Dying Light” and “Jekyll” were hard enough to hear as it was.
In the mean time, “Valhalla Rising” — which we loved when we saw it at TIFF 2009 — will hit theaters June 4th through IFC Films.
