Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive was a spectacular film in many respects, but one of the best things about it was the fact that, even with its graphic violence (who can get forget that image of Christina Hendricks's head being blown to pieces?), the cinematography remained artful and stunning the whole way through. And, judging by what we've seen so far of Winding's next film, Only God Forgives, it looks like he's managed to do it again.
The first red band promo may not have given us many clues about what to expect from the film plot-wise - except that Ryan Gosling will once again be all silent and intimidating a la The Driver, and he'll get to kick a lot of ass (and maybe smash another guy's head in with his foot). The new trailers, though, give us a bit more info: Kristen Scott Thomas will portray the boss and HBIC of a drug empire who, after one of her sons is killed by the creepily-named Angel of Vengeance (Vithaya Pansringarm), orders her other son (Gosling), to hunt down and kill him.
While the tone looks to be much different from Drive - rather than being set in the sleepless streets of Los Angeles, the film is set against a dream-like, neon-lit backdrop of Bangkok - Only God Forgives is clearly Refn once again at his finest. In fact, upon receiving the script, Gosling was quoted as saying that it was "the strangest thing I've ever read and it's only going to get stranger." Seems about right.
A new teaser poster:
You can also check out an super ominous, super GIF'd-up version of the poster here, courtesy of Radius-TWC, here.
As for the two trailers, you can watch them both below. Unfortunately, we are not yet in possession of the technology for time travel, so we're all going to have to wait until July 19th for this to hit theaters - but if anyone's got a DeLorean, feel free to hit up the comments. We're open to carpooling.
