Park Chan-Wook’s eye on Weaver

While Hollywood hedges their bets on Spike Lee for the inevitable Old Boy remake, the man responsible for the South Korean original, Park Chan-Wook, has never looked back since becoming one of the world’s most talked about filmmakers. 2000′s Joint Security Area (making Tarantino’s list of favourite films since 1992), 2002′s Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, through to 2009′s critically acclaimed Thirst and last year’s experimental short (filmed entirely on his iPhone 4!) Night Fishing, Park continues to ignite the excitement fires.

So it is with baited breath we await his English language debut, Stoker. From a script by Wentworth Miller (whose name conjures literary esteem alongside Hemingway and T.S. Eliot – but turns out he’s the young dude with the tatts on Prison Break!?) Stoker tells the story of an estranged uncle (Matthew Goode – Watchmen, A Single Man) returning to the family town after the death of a young girl’s father. After a series of missing person cases strike the community, the young girl begins to suspect the possibility of her uncle’s involvement.

Park’s casting choices have also got us excited; three Aussie’s have secured lead roles including Canberra’s own Mia Wasikowska as the investigative teen, Oscar-Winner Nicole Kidman as her mother and grieving widow (marking the umpteenth time Kidman has played a grieving mother/widow) and Oscar-nominated, Animal Kingdom patriarch Jacki Weaver in an as-yet unknown role. Stoker will not be Weaver’s Hollywood debut as audiences can expect to see her in the recently wrapped Emily Blunt/Jason Segel rom-com, The Five-Year Engagement (no points for guessing that plot).

Stoker will, we believe, mark a milestone in Weaver’s Imdb list that will surely sit alongside Picnic At Hanging Rock and Animal Kingdom as a stand-out in her already illustrious career. Having the names of visionaries Weir, Michôd and now Park on your CV means you must be doing something right. Cheers to you, Jacki!