Does director Rob Cohen have hidden depths we haven’t seen before? I certainly hope so, as the director of such fun but utter fluff flicks as Fast And The Furious, xXx, Stealth and The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor is planning to get a lot more serious with the Korean War drama, 1950, according to Variety.
The US and South Korean co-production is based on dispatches from New York Herald Tribune correspondent Marguerite Higgins, whose journey spanned across the Korean peninsula with a platoon of marines, and ended with the mass evacuation on Christmas Eve of nearly 200,000 South Korean civilians escaping the oncoming Chinese and North Korean armies.
Cohen says, “The Korean War has often been referred to as ‘the forgotten war’ and I think it’s time it was remembered. Telling the story of this harrowing conflict through the eyes of pioneering journalist Marguerite Higgins makes it a very different war film on every level.”
He’s quite right about that, but whether he’s the man who should be given $100 million to helmp remember it, is another question. But hey, perhaps we’ll discover that all his previous movies have just been training and that when he has to, he can deliver something more than forgettable popcorn fun. Personally I have my doubts though.
Rachel Long and Brian Pittman wrote the script, with production expected to begin next May and a planned release date during spring 2013. Before then, Cohen has another movie to complete, as he’s set to direct I Alex Cross starring Tyler Perry, a reboot of the detective franchise based on James Patterson’s novels.