The festival page includes the original film's premise and clips.
A potential new partner for Don Lee
Keanu Reeves is in talks to star in James Wan's Paramount version of The Gangster, the Cop, the Devil, Deadline reports. Don Lee is returning as crime boss Jang Dong-su. Reeves' role has not been revealed. The latest screenplay is by Eric Pearson.
The casting possibility has an immediate attraction, but the project's strongest asset is its arrangement of incompatible interests. Two capable people can pursue the same person while disagreeing about what success means. That gives an action film a conflict inside its central partnership, rather than forcing it to invent a new external obstacle whenever cooperation begins to work.
The original, directed by Lee Won-tae, screened in Cannes' 2019 Midnight programme. Its official synopsis describes a gangster surviving an attack, then joining a detective to hunt the serial killer responsible. The detective wants the man imprisoned; the gangster wants him dead.
That last distinction makes the premise. The hunt can unite the pair at the level of immediate action while dividing them at the level of purpose. A useful lead helps both men. An arrest may satisfy only one. The closer they get to their common target, the harder it becomes to postpone the question of whose desired ending will prevail.
Cooperation can carry its own suspense
A remake has a substantial opportunity in making that tension physical. Who controls a door, holds the car keys or gets to question a witness first can alter the balance between allies. These choices let a thriller express distrust through action. The audience does not need a fresh speech about incompatible moral codes whenever the partnership changes direction.
The gangster's need to restore standing also differs from a detective's need to produce a usable case. One depends on what other criminals believe about him; the other depends on turning knowledge into something an institution can act upon. The same public confrontation could help one objective and damage the other. Their methods can therefore generate consequences beyond whether a suspect escapes.
That is a more durable engine than treating official procedure as a tiresome delay before the supposedly effective criminal takes over. An investigation becomes richer when rules have functions and costs, while criminal authority has limits as well as force. Each partner should possess access the other lacks. Otherwise their alliance is merely a temporary inconvenience for the more competent protagonist.
Wan's task would be to keep that exchange legible while giving it momentum. Suspense needs the viewer to understand what can be lost in a particular moment. A chase becomes more distinctive if its possible outcomes mean different things to the people doing the chasing. Speed can then intensify the conflict instead of replacing it.
A returning performer can be an anchor
Lee's return provides an unusual point of continuity for an English-language reworking. The gangster need not be rebuilt entirely through another actor's interpretation. That opens a useful possibility: preserve a recognisable centre while changing the relationships and surroundings that act upon it. Familiarity can become a way to measure differences rather than a promise to repeat every effect.
Reeves' potential involvement adds another strong screen presence, but guessing his character would miss the more interesting casting question. How do two performers distribute stillness, impatience and authority within a scene? A partnership can feel competitive before anyone makes an explicit threat. A pause may ask whether an instruction is being accepted, ignored or quietly converted into a different plan.
The title itself usefully resists a tidy division between the lawful hero and everyone else. It arranges three positions around a single pursuit. The film can let those positions become unstable without pretending every person is morally equivalent. An understandable reason for cooperating does not remove responsibility for what somebody chooses to do once cooperation becomes possible.
That is why this project offers more than the prospect of famous actors confronting a dangerous killer. Its central bargain can become less secure as it becomes more effective. Preserve that contradiction, and a remake has a clear dramatic reason to exist: the action brings people together while bringing their incompatible endings closer.