Genre: Crime
Premise: When a dirty Los Angeles cop’s partner is killed by a Korean gangster, he follows the gangster to Seoul to get revenge, teaming up with a Korean bodyguard-for-hire who has his own reasons to kill the target.
About: In what would have been a game-changing experiment, this 2007 project was set to be made in Korea. There would be two cops, one played by Channing Tatum, the other played by a Korean actor, and two movies would be edited, one with a focus on the Korean cop for the Korean market, and the other to focus on Channing Tatum’s cop for the American market. The script was close to ready, but just as they were about to shoot, the writer’s strike happened. Since then, the project never got up and running. Doug Jung is best known for having the near impossible task of turning what was once a good script, The God Particle, into what would eventually become Netflix’s, “The Cloverfield Paradox.”
Writer: Doug Jung
Details: 111 pages
It’s so hard to get a project to the finish line. If even one thing gets in the way, it could destroy all momentum. And if that momentum isn’t picked back up soon, the film may never see the light of day. People in high positions getting fired has been the harbinger of doom for thousands of projects throughout the years. Just look at Fox. Half their slate was wiped out when Disney took over. And that was just for the movies that were finished. An untold number of projects in development were wiped out as well.
But the event that doomed this 2007 project was the writer’s strike. Channing Tatum, who was the most desired actor in the world at the time, was ready to make his Departed. They were mere months away from shooting and then… writer’s strike. The project never found its footing again. The irony is that 2019 seems like the ideal time to make a project like this. Who knows? Maybe this project isn’t dead yet.
Ethan is a Los Angeles cop who knows a thing or two about our justice system. Mainly that they don’t deliver. So when Ethan charges in on a man who’s murdered a woman after doing unmentionable things to her, he takes that man to the top of the building and TOSSES HIM OFF IT. Haters can suck it.
Because internal affairs can’t prove he tossed the man off the roof, Ethan’s off to his next gravity experiment. It’ll be a little tougher this time since his partner and best friend, Vincent, has been asked to keep a closer eye on him. While investigating a murder, the two find themselves in the middle of a high profile Korean criminal underground meeting. During the meeting, a dangerous Korean man named Moon kills the high ranking “president” in the room (this is what the Koreans call their major crime bosses). When all hell breaks loose, Ethan watches in horror as Moon slits Vincent’s throat then flees back to his country, where he plans to make a play for a presidency.
Devastated, Ethan gets on a flight to Seoul to get his revenge. But the Korean police don’t want him here. They know what he’s capable of and tell him to go home. Ethan sneaks away and eventually teams up with Park, the disgraced bodyguard of the “president” Moon killed. With Park’s knowledge of Seoul, Ethan figures he’s got a shot of finding Moon. But they’re going to have to act fast. Moon is moving up the ladder quickly. It’s only a matter of time before he becomes so powerful, he’s untouchable.
I’m always leery of these gimmicky movies (we’ll have one main character for one country and another main character for another country!). It’s hard enough to get a story right as it is. Less than 20 movies a year are able to do that. So how are you going to write a script that’s able to alternate main characters depending on the edit?
But it occurred to me that it’s not as hard as it sounds. You just write two really good characters. That way, it won’t matter who you cut to. We’re going to want to spend time with either.
Another thing I’m always reluctant about is generic cops and robbers scripts. These two elements have been explored so extensively over the years, that it’s nearly impossible to find a fresh way into the genre. And when you don’t have anything fresh, all that’s left is men with guns. And men with guns isn’t interesting.
For this reason, I was ecstatic that the bulk of this story took place in Seoul. I know a few of you hate when I use this word, but the Korean mythology – by that I mean the world-building of the Korean underworld – was unique enough to make this stand out from your average cops and robbers flick. I liked, for example, learning about the “presidents,” which were basically the Korean versions of mafias. I liked learning about the code between the cops and the gangsters. Everything about this universe was different from your average American cops and robbers movie.
The script also helped me realize what was missing from another recent ‘men with guns’ movie, John Wick 3 – a personal reason for all the killing. In John Wick, there isn’t a single emotional component to what John is doing. He’s just trying to stay alive. That was a big reason why all of his kills felt so empty. But in this script, Ethan is clearly torn up by his partner’s murder. And it’s for that reason that we care so much about his objective. We were there when Moon killed his partner. So we’re not leaving until we see him do the same to Moon.
Where the script faltered was in the character of Park. Park had an interesting story himself in that the man he was tasked with protecting was killed on his watch. But Park is more of a gun-for-hire. He had no personal attachment to the president that was killed. This leaves his emotional journey hanging, and not nearly as interesting as Ethan’s.
Still, I enjoyed the fish-out-of-water angle of Ethan being in Korea and Park helping him understand that it’s different here. You can’t just do whatever you want. You’ve got to operate with a sense of honor and respect, something Ethan is terrible at. It was sort of like a serious version of Rush Hour. It had that same kind of dichotomy between the main characters but without all the silly jokes and Jackie Chan jumping on busses. If you’re coming for Van Danzens, this is not your movie.
Despite enjoying this script, it never reached the level of the movie it was inspired by, The Departed (which came out a year earlier), because it didn’t have any flashy characters. There was nobody who popped off the page. And you need that in a script like this because you don’t have the big flashy concept. You have to find your flash in other places. The Departed had Jack Nicholson. We needed a character like that here.
Don’t give up on “Untitled” though. We may see this script come to life yet.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: “Men with guns” movies aren’t going to work on their own. You need an angle. What we’ve learned this week is that a unique mythology, whether made-up or based on a real place somewhere else in the world, can be that angle. With John Wick, it’s the “honor among assassins Continental” mythology. With this script, it’s the Korean crime world. Basically, if you’re not bringing us something new that we haven’t seen before, what incentive do we have to watch your movie?
