The director of the English language take on The Raid, Patrick Hughes, has been chatting about the film...
With The Raid 2 currently out in cinemas, offering a distinctly different approach to its predecessor, news has started to filter through about further Raid movies. And one of those is the US remake, which is being helmed by The Expendables 3 and Red Hill director Patrick Hughes.
Hughes has provided an update on The Raid remake from the set of The Expendables 3, telling Coming Soon that "we have a really, really interesting take on that film, One thing, obviously the original just blew my mind and I was fortunate enough to catch up with Gareth Evans in LA at the premiere of The Raid 2. The thing that blew my mind with that film was the aesthetics and the fight sequences but also the simplicity of the premise, and there's so much you can do with that".
So what direction will he take with his movie? "I feel like if anything what I want to do is elevate the emotional aspect of it, and I think those are my favourite action films of all time when you can balance the action and the emotion, and what he did with his first Raid was phenomenal".
Hughes confirmed that "we're not there to recreate that film beat for beat", instead revealing that "the set up we're following [is] a DEA task team, which was implemented by the Bush administration after September 11th when they realized that terrorism and the drug trade were so closely aligned. So they set up a DEA task team that's six units and they work across borders and sort of act like Navy SEALS. You never read about it, you never hear about it, but they go on these missions". As such, "what's interesting on this take on it is the clash of cultures and the clash of martial arts, the fighting styles, which is something that's going to be a lot of fun when we've really started pre-vizzing stuff".
It's certainly an interesting set up. Gareth Evans has recently spoken about being open minded about the project, and the original's fight choreographer is on board as well. That, combined with the fact that Hughes' earlier film, Red Hill, is fantastic, leaves us holding out some hope for this one.
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