Hollywood now remaking... foreign movies?

[Parasondox]

Evening to you all,

Okay, the title may say now but I know it's already been happening but how do you feel about them now? This comes as news that the movie The Raid: Redemption, will now be remade via Hollywood. As I said before this practise isn't new but why does it happen often now? The original Raid is brilliant. Intense, perfectly shot and had a good story and a great watch mixed with action and suspense. Could Hollywood create that same magic? And that movie was made on a limited budget with an unknown leading actor. [REC], may favourite horror movie in the past 20 years was remade into Quarantine and that didn't really capture what the original had. District 13, one of the best french action movie will be remade into Brick Mansion and staring David Belle (the original lead from District 13) and the late Paul Walker.

So if you wish, you can list and rate any foreign movie that has been remade by Hollywood but also what do you think about the practice? Should they just leave the original alone or do you think they can pull it off?

Comment below and thank you.

 

[Lucius Ivanov]

I thought they already made their take on "The Raid: Redemption" with the new "Dredd"(2012). Both take place in a similar scenario, an apartment building, and in both they climb up to the top floor to take care of the bad guy.

As how I feel about the practice.. well.. they milk a different cow and tell us that's the same one.

EDIT: Mixed the cows..

 

[Foolery]

It's been happening for a long time.

A Fistful of Dollars = Yojimbo
The Magnificent Seven = Seven Samurai

Those are my two favourites.

When it works well, it's great. But I don't think every foreign film needs to be remade. They're doing a remake of Oldboy with Josh Brolin. I'm curious to see how that turns out.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I think a lot of foreign remaking comes from a desire to repeat a film's success for your audience back home, assuming people cannot tolerate different languages or reading from the subtitles or simply won't go watch a movie if nobody they know is acting in it. I think it's a bad practice, abridging movies to cater to an audience that can't or won't enjoy the original stuff. People around the world should celebrate movies from all over. If you exclusively *have* to consume a movie from the comfort of your little world and aren't curious to reach out beyond that... well, it's not bad, just a shame.

About remakes of Argentine movies I know they remade 9 Queens, our biggest cult film, into some sort of straight-to-DVD fiasco called Criminal in the US. And now they want to remake Secret in Their Eyes, even though it won the Oscar and that should make it popular enough without the need for a remake. What bothers me the most is how on Earth would they go on around adapting to the dictatorship years in Argentina when the US has never had an unconstitutional military regime to deal with back home, or state terrorism worth 30,000 lives for that matter. Are they just going to replace the context? Because that would defeat the purpose of the movie. Or are they going to pretend they can get away with recreating the Argentine setting? I'd buy that for a dollar, just to laugh at it.

 

[Darth Rosenberg]

I still refuse to watch The Magnificent Seven, so maybe I'm not the best person to comment...

I just lost a post where I went into a little more detail, but essentially: ultimately remakes do introduce more people to the source material and/or genres that spawned them, so they do have a positive impact. If Hollywood really is remaking more foreign films, then that could simply be because more people these days are aware of other nations film culture. The support from the mainstream had to come from somewhere, and that support is generated by enough people around the world watching films from around the world.

 

[Parasondox]

When it works well, it's great. But I don't think every foreign film needs to be remade. They're doing a remake of Oldboy with Josh Brolin. I'm curious to see how that turns out.

They have already remade Oldboy and was out at the end of last year. Maybe it's not out in your country yet but it's been made and rated. You can check it out on any US movie page if you wish and see the ratings. It's directed by Spike Lee.

 

[[Kira Must Die]]

I recently watched the remake of Oldboy, and despite the negative reviews, I thought it was pretty decent, and I'm a huge fan of the Chan-wook Park film. Not as good as the Korean film, of course, but on it's own it's fine. It's well-made enough. It's a better Korean-to-American adaptation than The Uninvited.

As for foreign remakes in general, I'm okay with the idea of it. It's not a new thing, after all, and it's not even an American thing, either. I'm more annoyed by the general reactions people have to them.

 

[Zontar]

I thought they already made their take on "The Raid: Redemption" with the new "Dredd"(2012). Both take place in a similar scenario, an apartment building, and in both they climb up to the top floor to take care of the bad guy.

As how I feel about the practice.. well.. they milk a different cow and tell us that's the same one.

EDIT: Mixed the cows..

Uh, there are 2 problems with this theory. 1st is that the movies, though having similar settings, have absolutely nothing in common (the timing also makes it impossible for one to have taken from the other given production time). 2nd is the fact that it isn't a Hollywood movie, but a British/South African one.

 

[Lucius Ivanov]

...

Oh.. Okay. Thanks and I apologize for my ignorance on the matter.

 

[Movitz]

It's been happening for a long time.

A Fistful of Dollars = Yojimbo
The Magnificent Seven = Seven Samurai

Those are my two favourites.

When it works well, it's great. But I don't think every foreign film needs to be remade. They're doing a remake of Oldboy with Josh Brolin. I'm curious to see how that turns out.

I have watched both A Fistful of Dollars and Yojimbo, and it's true
that they have the same plot structure and elements. The
Style and settings of the movies however are very different.

That is not the case with say Rec and Quarantine, the latter
being a almost complete shot-for-shot remake of the former.

 

[Albino Boo]

It's been happening for a long time.

A Fistful of Dollars = Yojimbo
The Magnificent Seven = Seven Samurai

Those are my two favourites.

When it works well, it's great. But I don't think every foreign film needs to be remade. They're doing a remake of Oldboy with Josh Brolin. I'm curious to see how that turns out.

Its worth noting that Kurosawa said that he took the plot a 1940s hollywood film noir and added some John Ford Western. So a Fistfull of dollars is an Itllain remake of Japanese film which was in turn a remake of 1940s hollywood film noir.

 

[schrodinger]

Oh please, hollywood remaking foreign movies is nothing new, in fact they've been doing it since the early days. I've come to ignore the remakes and just see the original instead, but with a few exceptions like the magnificent seven and the girl with the dragon tattoo.

To anyone thinking about seeing the Oldboy remake, DON'T SEE IT. The movie is a pussified image of the Korean classic and it pretty much copies the korean movie in numerous shots.

 

[Thaluikhain]

It's been happening for a long time.

A Fistful of Dollars = Yojimbo
The Magnificent Seven = Seven Samurai

Those are my two favourites.

When it works well, it's great. But I don't think every foreign film needs to be remade. They're doing a remake of Oldboy with Josh Brolin. I'm curious to see how that turns out.

Can't speak for a Fistful of Dollars, but isn't The Magnificent Seven an adaptation, or "inspired by", rather than a remake?

 

[Foolery]

It's been happening for a long time.

A Fistful of Dollars = Yojimbo
The Magnificent Seven = Seven Samurai

Those are my two favourites.

When it works well, it's great. But I don't think every foreign film needs to be remade. They're doing a remake of Oldboy with Josh Brolin. I'm curious to see how that turns out.

Can't speak for a Fistful of Dollars, but isn't The Magnificent Seven an adaptation, or "inspired by", rather than a remake?

Honestly, I'd both are inspired by. But, a large portion of A Fistful of Dollars is almost a scene-for-scene remake of Yojimbo.

 

[BreakfastMan]

It's been happening for a long time.

A Fistful of Dollars = Yojimbo
The Magnificent Seven = Seven Samurai

Those are my two favourites.

When it works well, it's great. But I don't think every foreign film needs to be remade. They're doing a remake of Oldboy with Josh Brolin. I'm curious to see how that turns out.

I have watched both A Fistful of Dollars and Yojimbo, and it's true
that they have the same plot structure and elements. The
Style and settings of the movies however are very different.

That is not the case with say Rec and Quarantine, the latter
being a almost complete shot-for-shot remake of the former.

Well certainly, but being almost completely different whilst still having similar plots and ideas is the basis for pretty much every great remake (see: The Thing, The Fly, Forbidden Planet, 12 Monkeys, Cape Fear, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Departed, Insomnia, The Mummy, Nosferatu the Vampyre, Ransom, etc). Making a shot-for-shot remake is almost certainly the wrong way to do a remake.

 

[WWmelb]

I have to say for the most part, hollywood remakes of foreign films are pretty woeful.

My major exception to this was The Departed, the remake of Infernal Affairs. That was a new take on the story done VERY well indeed.

It's been happening for a long time.

A Fistful of Dollars = Yojimbo
The Magnificent Seven = Seven Samurai

Those are my two favourites.

When it works well, it's great. But I don't think every foreign film needs to be remade. They're doing a remake of Oldboy with Josh Brolin. I'm curious to see how that turns out.

I have watched both A Fistful of Dollars and Yojimbo, and it's true
that they have the same plot structure and elements. The
Style and settings of the movies however are very different.

That is not the case with say Rec and Quarantine, the latter
being a almost complete shot-for-shot remake of the former.

Well certainly, but being almost completely different whilst still having similar plots and ideas is the basis for pretty much every great remake (see: The Thing, The Fly, Forbidden Planet, 12 Monkeys, Cape Fear, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Departed, Insomnia, The Mummy, Nosferatu the Vampyre, Ransom, etc). Making a shot-for-shot remake is almost certainly the wrong way to do a remake.

Question, what on earth was 12 monkeys a remake of?

 

[Fdzzaigl]

My hate of those things is almost on the same level as my hate for dubs, which shines bright with the light of a thousand fiery supernovas.

Though I must say that I was pleasently surprised by the remake "Let me in". Can't recall any other instance where I didn't want to annihilate the disc utterly and completely though.

 

[Gottesstrafe]

They've been doing it for a while now. A Fistful of Dollars, The Magnificent 7, The Departed, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Let Me In, Oldboy, The Eye, youknowwhatit'seasierjusttoputthislink [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English-language_films_with_previous_foreign-language_film_versions].

Personally, I don't care so long as the remake is GOOD (or at least taken in a new enough direction to be a creature of its own) or credit is given where it's due. Take the source material and do your own thing with it, that's how we got so many delightful Bollywood films. Status as a remake doesn't preclude quality. Hell, that's where we got the Japanese remake of the American remake of Yojimbo, Sukiyaki Western Django.

 

[Chemical Alia]

I remember watching The Departed, hating it, and feeling like the ending was exactly like a stereotypical depressing Chinese drama ending like Infernal Affairs. It turns out that's exactly what it was.

 

[Fsyco]

Other people have already mentioned this, but Hollywood has been making Americanized versions of foreign films since it was founded. Foreign cultures do it too, making their own versions of American cinema. (Spaghetti Westerns, for example).

The thing is, an adaptation is good if it takes the basis of the source material and transplants it into a new cultural backdrop, making the story more relevant to people in that culture. It doesn't just apply to movies, too. Remember Silent Hill: Homecoming? That was a distinctly Americanized version of a Japanese horror idea. And general consensus seems to be that it was a decent game but nothing like the old Silent Hills.

MovieBob said it best in his Oldboy review, and Yahtzee's said a similar variation: An adaptation is good if it uses the source material as a 'jumping off' point for new ideas in new contexts. When they just want to worship the original, that's when they turn to crap. IE, adaptions like The Departed versus 'shot-for-shot'/unadventurous remakes like Psycho, Carrie, or Oldboy.