For years, visionary director Ang Lee has been delivering powerful films, whether for their outstanding visual effects, like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, or for their emotionally complicated themes, like Brokeback Mountain. He’s even managed to successfully combine these elements into one as he did in 2012 with Life of Pi. This weekend, Lee teams up with mega-star Will Smith to deliver what might be his most visually ambitious film to date – Gemini Man, starring Smith in dual roles. In the film, Smith plays Henry, an elite assassin, who is suddenly targeted and pursued by a mysterious young operative that can predict his every move. As it turns out, the younger assassin is Junior, Henry’s clone, also played by Will Smith thanks to the use of ground-breaking motion capture CGI.
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As celebrated of a filmmaker as Ang Lee is, a lot of people tend to forget that he was the man behind the camera in 2003 for Hulk, starring Eric Bana as Bruce Banner, a good four years before we’d be introduced to what we know now as the Marvel Cinematic Universe. While the film wasn’t well-received at the time, it’s aged better over the years, with many people retrospectively acknowledging the film’s place in elevating the comic book genre beyond mindless action.
Recently, we got an opportunity to sit down with Ang Lee to promote Gemini Man, and during the interview, we asked him if he’d ever be interested in directing another comic book film seeing how the genre has matured now over the last 20 years: “Probably not,” Lee started. “The comic book did great inspiration for me in terms of film-making. I learned a lot from their skills, including different panels, including the use of colors.”
Lee elaborated further on why he likely won’t direct another comic book film: “I feel a little old for that, there are other explorations to do.”
Still, unlike other A-list film directors like Martin Scorsese (who recently came under fire online for voicing his disdain of comic book films in general), Lee still holds a fondness for comic book films: “I respect those movies. Actually, I had a great time making that movie. But it was very hard.”
Gemini Man hits theaters nationwide this Friday, October 11th. You can check our early reactions for the film here. For more of Ang Lee’s take on Hulk and Gemini Man, make sure you watch the interview in its entirety at the top of the page.
