Boy, Nicolas Winding Refn really brings out the violent side in Ryan Gosling, doesn’t he? We saw evidence of it in Drive and now the pair has gotten really intense with Only God Forgives, which features fist pounding, bullet-riddled action and, even more frighteningly, karaoke. Take a look at the red-hued red band trailer below.
Gosling stars as Julian, who lives in exile in Bangkok where he runs a Thai boxing club as a front for the family’s drugs smuggling operation. When Julian’s brother Billy is killed their mother, Jenna (Kristin Scott Thomas), arrives in the city. She wants revenge and forces Julian to find the killer. Julian’s contacts in the criminal underworld lead him directly to The Angel of Vengeance, a retired police officer who knows everything and who is both Judge and Punisher. Jenna demands that Julian kill The Angel of Vengeance, an act that will cost him dearly... Yes, there will be more than hammers on display here.
Refn told Empire last year that, "It's a stream of consciousness. It's based on real emotions but set in a heightened reality. It's a fairy tale." That certainly seems to be the case with the footage here. We’re anticipating great things from the latest Refn/Gosling union, but we’ll all have to be patient. While Only God Forgives lands in US cinemas on May 23, there’s no word on a UK release date yet.