The project, which is being developed at Fox Atomic, has been compared to the Michael Douglas-starrer Black Rain, which took an American police detective to Tokyo in the 1980s. However, the producers emphasised that their film is not a remake of Black Rain.
The film will star Channing Tatum (Step Up, She's The Man) and is forecasted to be in the $10m-$15m budget range.
Notably, the film will have a studio-approved Korean director with two versions - one tailored to Korean audiences and one for the US market - with the director getting final cut on the local version and the studio for the other.
The producers are looking to co-produce with a local company, most likely designated by the director, but are not looking for investment from Korea.
They remarked: 'Lots of the Korean movies we've seen in the States have production values of a higher level, and with a local director, post-production would likely be done in Korea as well.'
Most of the main cast will be local, with a younger gangster that teams up with the LA cop, an older gangster and a female role all to be played by Koreans.
'Ideally, we'd like to have Seoul be like a character in the movie, like Manhattan is in Woody Allen movies,' said Roy Lee.
The Seoul Film Commission is funding locations scouting trips such as this one, and also provides locations and funding support to foreign films of up to 25% of budget, with a maximum cap of $100,000.
Scriptwriter Doug Jung, whose credits include Confidence, is waiting in the wings for the WGA strike to be resolved to go back to work on the project.
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