Geoffrey Wright, the writer-director of the controversial 1992 film that helped make Russell Crowe a star, will revisit the violent neo-Nazi scene he depicted so unflinchingly 25 years ago, writing and directing two of the episodes.

Some key cast members will return too, though Crowe, whose character, Hando, died at the end of the film, is not among them.

"Someone suggested bringing him back, but we weren't going to do that," the director said on Monday. "I'm not interested in a parallel universe where characters who are dead come back to life."

Among those who will return are Dan Wyllie, who played gang member Cackles, and Jacqueline McKenzie, whose Gabe was at the centre of a love triangle completed by Hando and his best mate Davey (Daniel Pollock, who died shortly before the film was released).

Rising star Toby Wallace (the young Michael Hutchence in Never Tear Us Apart: The INXS Story) plays Kane, a drifter who gets drawn into a hard-right Australian nationalist group.

"The idea is what if some of those characters from the film had children, and if those children are now in their early 20s, what would happen," said Wright. "The old characters are in positions of personal power now, involved in intriguing little suburban subterfuges or high-flying corporate gambits. It might surprise people to learn that some of them really did land on their feet."

The series, which begins filming in Melbourne late next week, is being produced by John Edwards – whose extensive past credits include Police Rescue, The Secret Life of Us, Tangle and Offspring – and son Dan under their new venture with Roadshow, Rough Diamond.

"It's contemporary, set in a post-Brexit, Trump world, where the right-wing politics of then have come into the centre in a much more menacing way," Edwards senior said. "We've got an anti-fascist point of view and a secular Muslim point of view and the characters from back then – the ones who are still alive – are still with us and active in the world, and a new wave of nasties are afoot."

Wright shares directing duties with Daina Reid (Paper Giants, Never Tear Us Apart) and New Zealander James Napier-Robertson (The Dark Horse). Writing duties are shared between Wright, Napier-Robertson, poet and rapper Omar Musa, and Fairfax journalist and author Malcolm Knox.

Wright said revisiting the characters was a "very stimulating" exercise that had been in play for about 12 months, with interest in the project coming from multiple directions.

"I wouldn't say there was a bidding war exactly. It was more a question of who was going to be the most gung-ho about executing it with us."

Although the original film was condemned by some upon its release – including, famously, David Stratton – Wright says the cultural landscape into which the series will be launched is far less forgiving.

"I think we're in more PC times now than in the old days. There's more pressure to not do this, not do that."

So what concessions has Wright, once considered the enfant terrible of Australian cinema, made to keep everyone on side?

"The right-wingers in our story aren't the only violent people," he says. "We throw a light on a group on the other side of the fence that really hasn't been exposed much before." The left, in other words.

So should we expect Romper Stomper redux to be a violent romp that stomps on everyone's sensibilities equally? That sounds about Wright.