Stoker Trailer: Park Chan-Wook’s Hollywood Introduction
Park Chan-wook is considered one of the best directors working in Korea. He is the award winning writer and director of titles like Joint Security Area, Thirst and the hugely respected Oldboy. 2013 will see the release of his English-language film debut Stoker in theatres. Here is the trailer.
![Stoker Trailer 2012 Nicole Kidman 2013 Movie - Official [HD]](https://the-artifice.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-youtube-lyte/lyteCache.php?origThumbUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2Fbtm7WjSwPmQ%2F0.jpg)
Stoker follows a friendless outsider named India 
Stoker (Wasikowska) who finds her world changing when her father dies in a car accident and her emotionally unstable mother Evelyn (Kidman) introduces a mysterious uncle named Charlie (Goode) into their house. India finds herself gradually coming under Charlie’s influence and she discovers he has quite the dark side which draws her into bloody events.
Mysterious uncle with a dark side moving into town? Sounds like Hitchcock’s classic Shadow of a Doubt (1943). The writer is Wentworth Miller, star of the TV series Prison Break, and he claims that film as an influence alongside Bram Stoker’s Dracula and while there are no vampires with bared fangs running around, the trailer reveals a lot of darkness in a film that seems to be a cross between a dark family drama and a psychological horror.
Stoker stars Australian actresses Nicole Kidman (To Die For) and Mia Wasikowska (Jane Eyre) and the British actor Matthew Goode in the main roles with support coming from Dermot Mulroney and Jacki Weaver.
Since Park Chan-wook is directing we can expect the dark tone to be maintained, as anyone who has seen his films can attest. With Thirst he turned the Émile Zola’s dramatic and naturalistic novel Thérèse Raquin into a deliriously bloody, blackly humorous and sexy horror film with vampires in a clever take on the sordid love triangle. With Oldboy, Park Chan-wook took a Japanese manga and turned it from a thriller into a sadistic tale of revenge and perversion that ends on a daringly dark note. All of his films have had a distinct visual style that is part expressionistic and it seems from this trailer that he has maintained his form here.
You can see this dark drama unfold on March 01st, 2013.
What do you think? Leave a comment.
Great article! Something worth mentioning (or at least when I found out about this, my excitement went to Jupiter) is that Clint Mansell (The Fountain, Requiem for a Dream etc) is scoring it and the piano piece that Mia plays throughout the film is by Philip Glass. Only questionmark I guess is Nicolas De Toth editing…? Hopefully Park has full control of the post-production.
More reasons to anticipate the film. Clint Mansell and Philip Glass. The music is going to be excellent.
I would say JSA is his most important movie. I must have watched it countless of times.
You wouldn’t believe how many people I know who like his films have never either seen or heard of JSA. It’s amazing!
Oldboy is much more famous than Joint Security Area. I’m not sure which I prefer to be honest. I’m going to have to watch the two again.
Joint Security Area is superior IMO if you know a lot of North/South Korean history.
There is something about Thirst though that makes me rewatch it…
Haha I know what you mean! That movie has something about it that keeps drawing me back to it.
Fantastic article Jason! I been following Chan-wook’s career since 2003 when I saw Oldboy, and I’ve been a devoted fan of his since. I was a little worried when I heard he was making his Hollywood debut, mostly because many directors coming out of Asia don’t have a smooth transition into English speaking films. Stoker looks like another quality Park film, except it’s in English haha.
I love Oldboy! I saw it at the cinema and was immediately made a fan of Park Chan-wook. None of his films have disappointed me so far and I hope that this one is excellent.
I hear your fears about Asian directors and Hollywood. Hideo Nakata and John Woo never truly produced great works in the west but I think that Park Chan-wook and the other Korean directors working on projects will be different.
Well here’s hoping! I’m just loving the quality coming out of Korea right now.
Would you ever believe that the boy from Prison Break would write a script that Chan-wook, probably one of the greatest, is directing?! If you would’ve told me that a while ago, I would have laughed.
I was also surprised about Wentworth Miller’s involvement through the script. He must have done a brilliant job to get Park Chan-wook on the project!
I’m waiting eagerly for this one. The trailer speaks masterpiece… I hope that the Academy will recognize Park Chan-wook if it came to it.
Seems creepy. And yikes.. OldBoy.
The acting talent seems solid.