The new red-band trailer for Only God Forgives is really something to look at – it’s beautiful, full of slow-motion menace and more atmospheric style than the law should allow.
Due for release in July, the crime drama reunites Ryan Gosling with Nicolas Winding Refn, who directed Gosling in Drive. That’s reason right there to cool your jets, at least a little. Drive was beautiful, violent, atmospheric and bursting with style, too. In the end, that’s pretty much all it was. Only God Forgives looks like it might be more of the same, only more so.
Gosling told Hollywood Reporter in a story that ran last month that Only God Forgives is “much more extreme” than Drive. Once again, he seems to be playing a tough, enigmatic character though this time he’s causing and getting into trouble in Thailand. He spent months training in Thailand to learn Muay Thai martial arts for the movie. In the script, the character he plays is “kind of invincible,” he says. But then he realized that was “cheesy,” so he had it rewritten.
“I don’t think I land one punch on anyone,” he says of the finished movie. “It’s just having my ass handed to me the whole time… and it’s more realistic.”
Want proof that he speaks the truth? Take a look at the movie’s poster that accompanies this story. It shows Gosling looking like he’s been beaten to a bloody pulp. Thankfully, the poster is in black and white (and I’m reproducing it small to soften the effect).
Have a look at the trailer below. It’s impressive. And, no doubt, the film makes as many arty allusions to other, better movies as Drive did.
