Nicolas Winding Refn Says "Only God Forgives" Is an Accumulation of All His Films So Far

Plus, check out nine new stills.

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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For the best description of Nicolas Winding Refn's upcoming film Only God Forgives, look no further than star Ryan Gosling - during a New York Times interview this past March, the subject of the film came up, and its obvious comparisons to Refn's last Gosling-starring film, Drive.

"Drive is a dream," Gosling told the paper. "Only God Forgives is a nightmare."

After seeing all of the new promotional material that's been rolling out for Only God Forgives, we couldn't agree more - whereas Drive seemed was set in the sleepless streets of LA, Only God Forgives calls a neon-lit Bangkok its home, thus setting a dream-like tone to the film. Of course, in addition to the massive amounts of violence, served up by a brooding, stoic Gosling.

The previously released trailers (one, two) have given us somewhat of a good idea of what to expect from the film, but nothing gives more insight into the project than this new director's statement from Refn himself. "The original concept for the film was to make a movie about a man who wants to fight God," he explained. "When I was writing the film, I was going through some very existential times in my life...and the idea of having a character who wants to fight God without knowing why very much appealed to me."

Here is the full director's statement, courtesy of Indiewire:

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Only God Forgives is set to hit theaters on July 19th. You can check out some new stills from the film above.

RELATED: The 25 Most Anticipated Movies of Summer 2013

[via Blackbook Mag]

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