movies

Korean film maestro Park Chan-wook is keeping in motion. The internationally acclaimed auteur, 60, will begin production on Saturday on his 12th feature, an adaptation of American novelist Donald Westlake’s 1996 novel The Ax. The movie, which is currently going by the working title I Can’t Help It, will star Korean screen royalty Lee Byung-hun and Son Ye-jin, with financing and distribution coming from local studio heavyweight CJ ENM.

Westlake’s novel was previously adapted into French by Costa Gavras as the 2005 film Le Couperet (The Axe). Like its predecessor, Park’s adaptation follows a man — named Man-soo this time and played by Lee — who is abruptly laid off by the paper company where he worked tirelessly for many years. The man grows increasingly desperate in his hunt for new work, eventually resolving to kill his job competitors. Son will play the man’s wife, the warm-hearted Mi-ri.

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CJ ENM has said the target release date for the film remains undecided. Park, however, is a regular at the Cannes Film Festival, held annually in May, having premiered four of his films there.