Julian, an American fugitive from justice, runs a boxing club in Bangkok as a front for his drug business.

His mother, the head of a vast criminal organization, arrives from the US to collect the body

of her favorite son, Billy. Julian’s brother has just been killed after having savagely murdered

a young prostitute. Crazy with rage and thirsty for vengeance she demands the heads of the

murderers from Julian.

But first, Julian must confront Chang, a mysterious retired policeman – and figurehead of a divine

justice – who has resolved to scourge the corrupt underworld of brothels and fight clubs
Director’s Notes:

“The original concept for the film was to make a movie about a man who wants to

fight God. That is, of course, a very vast obstacle but when I was writing the film, I was going through some very existential times in my life – we were expecting our second child and it was a difficult pregnancy – and the idea of having a character who wants to fight God without knowing why very much appealed to me.

With that as the concept, I elaborated by adding a character who believes he is God

(Chang), obviously the antagonist, with the protagonist being a gangster who is looking for

religion to believe in (Julian). This itself is, of course, very existential because faith is based on the need for a higher answer but most of the time, we don’t know what the question is. When the answer comes, then, we must backtrack our lives in order to find the question. In this way, the film is conceived as an answer, with the question revealed at the end.

With hindsight, I am able to see the similarities between Chang and One Eye in Valhalla Rising, and driver in Drive- all are rooted in fairytale mythology and have difficulties

living in the everyday world. I can see that technically, there is a resemblance in their stoic

behavior, silence, and fetishistic portraits even though they live in different times and are

portrayed by different actors. In Valhalla Rising, One Eye is enigmatic – we don’t know his past but he is defined by his name. In Drive,driver is defined by his function. And in

Only God Forgives,Chang is first of all defined by his enigmatic behaviour, to such an extent that he becomes a disembodied character, an ‘it’, defined not by his name but solely by his image.

In a way, Only God Forgivesis like an accumulation of all the films I’ve made so

far. I think I was heading toward a creative collision, full speed ahead, in order to change

everything around me and to see what would come after. I have always said that I set out to make films about women but I end up making films about violent men. Now that everything is colliding, it may end up turning things upside-down for me. This collision is exciting because everything around me becomes so uncertain and we must not forget that the second enemy of creativity, after having ‘good taste’, is being safe”

After the great success of Drive,why did you decide to make a medium budget film in Thailand?

Medium budget is an understatement. It’s more a very low budget film. It all started with my two-picture deal with Wild Bunch and Gaumont.

Only God Forgiveswas going to be our first collaboration. Then

Drivecame along so I decided to make it and postpone

Only God Forgives.But the film was so firmly rooted in me that I had to make it. So even while I was making

DriveI was preparing Only God Forgives.

Having revisited the American crime picture you wanted to revisit the martial arts genre.

Is this a general love of genre movies?

I’ve always loved martial arts films but thought it would be extremely difficult to make one,

particularly since I wanted the actors to learn Muay Thai and fight for real. It takes a lifetime to learn the art of Muay Thai and I wanted the actors to learn to fight in 8 weeks. Just that was a challenge in itself.

You had many offers from major studios. Why did you turn them down?

I was indeed offered some financially very interesting propositions that I seriously looked into but Only God Forgives

had haunted me for too long, I had to get it out before I could seriously consider other projects.

Your film begins as a gangster movie then gradually turns into a strange revenge film.

Can you tell us where this story – very reminiscent of Greek tragedy – came from?

I’ve always wanted to make a film about a mother/son relationship and its conflicts. I wanted the film to begin in one genre and gradually transform into something else as the final showdown between mother and son approaches. Only God Forgivesmarks the second time you’ve worked with Ryan Gosling.

Can you describe this new collaboration? How would you describe his character?

Another actor was supposed to play Julian but pulled out close to shooting. Now I consider

this a blessing because it allowed Ryan and me to continue our collaboration. Oddly,

I’d written the screenplay before I made Drive and Julian had been conceived as a very silent character. When Ryan and I started to work on the script after

Drive this language of silence came naturally, which was very useful since Julian is an extremely tortured character – he never goes towards others but withdraws into himself.
With hindsight I can’t imagine another actor playing this role. But again, Ryan and I are practically one.

For the part of the strange policeman/avenger you chose Vithaya Pansringarm.

Can you talk about your collaboration?

Casting in Thailand was extremely complicated because actors there don’t really have a

theatrical training. They tend to be people who have decided to become actors while holding down another job. I was very lucky that during this open casting (itself a real challenge in a city of 12 million inhabitants) Vithaya miraculously appeared at the beginning.

I met him a year and a half before shooting and knew he was the one. I can’t tell you why

exactly because his tests weren’t remarkable but there was something in him – his kindness and his calm – yet I knew he would be unpredictable, which I always find interesting. In all my films, the actors always play a large part in the creation of the characters, they really are part of their dNA, and Vithaya quickly understood that his character was judge, jury and executioner in one – a man with the ability to decide what is good or what is evil. He was able to bring to the character exactly what I was looking for, the ability to control

a kind of karmic justice. For each bad thing you do, something bad will come to haunt you

in return and he is the one who decides to haunt you or to forgive you