Nicolas Winding Refn’s The Neon Demon was a nice return to form after the disappointing Only God Forgives, but it sounds like his next film will be a direct attempt to cater to fans of his phenomenally stylish 2011 thriller Drive. For cool people who like cool stuff, that’s pretty good news all on its own. It gets even better, though, because The Playlist has uncovered some details about the film’s plot, and it sounds like it’ll be the very best kind of ridiculous.
As we previously reported, the film is called The Avenging Silence and it’s a spy thriller set in Tokyo, but this new report adds that it will be about a former European spy who lost the use of his vocal records after a botched mission, leaving him unable to speak and with no choice but to give up the spy game. Years later, a retired Japanese businessman hires him to assassinate a dangerous and possibly insane yakuza crime boss, so he secretly boards a cargo ship to Japan (he‘s afraid of flying).
It gets even crazier from there, with the mute spy tracking down clues “symbolizing conquest, war, famine, and death” so he can uncover the location of the crime boss’ hidden fortress, which is completely devoid of technology because of the crime boss’ paranoid fear that rival yakuza leaders will try to kill him. It all reportedly ends in “a confrontation with the ultimate yakuza boss in a terrifying conclusion,” which practically screams “epic sword fight to the death.” Also, just in case it wasn’t clear, this is all for a movie and not the coolest fucking video game ever made.
The Playlist got this synopsis from the International Film Festival & Awards Macao’s Crouching Tigers Project Lab, which is an organization designed to help filmmakers pitch their projects to potential distributors. We don’t know if any potential distributors jumped on board with The Avenging Silence, but we can only imagine that people were just throwing money at Refn when they heard his pitch.