Leonardo DiCaprio to star in adaptation of SATORI for Warner Bros.
Leonardo DiCaprio will yet again play another character that blurs the line between good and bad. Deadline reports that the actor will star in an adaptation of Don Winslow’s SATORI, which was just acquired by Warner Bros. studio. He is going to play the role of a “Westerner named Nicholai Hel in the story who is raised in Japan and taught the skills of an assassin.”
Here is a further description of the character:
“raised in Japan by a martial arts expert and genius at Go, the complex chess-like Japanese game. The master, a Japanese general, passes on all his secrets and the student repays him by murdering his mentor as an act of devotion; the military leader would have been disgraced and killed as a war criminal. For that act, Hel is thrown in solitary confinement in a Tokyo prison, and tortured for three years. He is finally sprung by the CIA after agreeing to assassinate the Soviet commissioner to China. Hel is trained for the task by a beautiful French woman he falls in love with. Though he now sees a happy ending at the end of the dangerous assignment, Hel is betrayed by his backers, and, using his Go skills for strategy, makes his way through Vietnam hunted by American, Chinese, Russian and French intelligence agencies as well as a Corsican mob and Vietnamese criminal syndicate. It’s a sophisticated thriller and the studio sees potential for its own Jason Bourne-type action franchise.”
Shane Salerno (SHAFT, ARMAGEDDON) is penning the script and a director is currently being sought. The cast is already off to a great start, so lets see who else is added.
Here’s a description of the story from the book:
Prepare to meet the world’s most dangerous man . . .
Nicholai Hel-genius, mystic, and the perfect, formidable assassin-was first introduced to readers in Shibumi, the classic #1 bestseller by master storyteller Trevanian. Now critically acclaimed author Don Winslow continues Hel’s story for the first time in this all-new, blockbuster thriller.
SATORI
It is the fall of 1951, and the Korean War is raging. Twenty-six-year-old Nicholai Hel has spent the last three years in solitary confinement at the hands of the Americans. Hel is a master of hoda korosu, or “naked kill,” is fluent in seven languages, and has honed extraordinary “proximity sense”-an extra-awareness of the presence of danger. He has the skills to be the world’s most fearsome assassin and now the CIA needs him.
The Americans offer Hel freedom, money, and a neutral passport in exchange for one small service: to go to Beijing and kill theSoviet Union’s commissioner to China. It’s almost certainly a suicide mission, but Hel accepts. Now he must survive chaos, violence, suspicion, and betrayal while trying to achieve his ultimate goal of satori-the possibility of true understanding and harmony with the world.
The Author
