Remaking an original

By Miguel Paolo Celestial

Published in WestEast Magazine #24: GlobalizAsian, 2008

Not for Raging Bull, The Last Temptation of Christ, Goodfellas, Gangs of New
York, or The Aviator did Martin Scorsese win an Academy Award for Best
Director. He only bagged it for The Departed, or should we say, for Warner Bros.’
adaptation of Andrew Lau and Alan Mak’s Hong Kong crime thriller Infernal
Affairs.

Leonardo DiCaprio for Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Matt Damon for Andy Lau, Jack
Nicholson for Anthony Wong, and the Irish mob for the Triad. Is this multi-Oscar-
awarded movie more than just a transliteration from one language and ethnicity
to another? Do the different versions of this crime thriller mean the same for
Hong Kong viewers as for Massachusetts’ audiences? Whatever the
considerations, nobody can deny that, in business terms, The Departed has been
a successfully localized product, traded between foreign outfits for the
consumption of a foreign audience. That success has literally translated to bigger
box-office profits for Hollywood than for Hong Kong cinema.

Globalization has eased the processes through which film remakes are brokered.
As Hollywood creates remakes of Asian films, Asian houses also retell Western
stories to their local audiences. But what exactly is the difference between an
Asian film with English subtitles and its Hollywood remake? Why are some Asian
films less “consumable” to American audiences in their original form and why are
others more favored untouched? Does the rise of martial arts movies and Asian
filmmakers have anything to do with their countries’ emerging economies or
merely the redirection of the US film industry?

Kurosawa and Present-Day East Asia

One story seen through two different viewpoints: after book-movie tie-ins, film
remakes seem to be the second most popular method in cinema for
reinterpreting another work of art.

Perhaps the most famous Asian filmmaker whose works have been remade is
Akira Kurosawa. His masterpiece, Seven Samurai, widely acclaimed as one of
the most influential films ever created, has spawned adaptations both in Asia and
the West. In The Magnificent Seven, Kurosawa’s samurai are replaced with
cowboys. The movie even patterns its scenes after the original, in the same way
scenes in The Departed mirror those in Infernal Affairs. The Indian movie Sholay,
considered as one of India’s highest-grossing movies, also follows the story of
Seven Samurai.
Hollywood has long been remaking foreign box-office hits, since the time of
Kurosawa until the present, but East Asian remakes have never been as prolific,
grand, popular, and profitable as today.

More recent American adaptations of Asian movies include the reinterpretation of

the South Korean sentimental drama Il Mare into Lake House and Japan’s Shall
We Dansu into Shall We Dance. Japanese horror fare, or what is known as “J-
Horror” has also received much Hollywood attention with the remakes of Ringu
into The Ring, Dark Water, Ju-on into The Grudge, Kairo as Pulse, and
Chakushin Ari into One Missed Call. Some remakes include sequels and
prequels. Soon South Korea’s mega-hit My Sassy Girl and A Tale of Two Sisters
may see their Western versions.

Kurosawa may be a uniquely original artist, but he also borrowed heavily from
the West. He envisioned Asian versions of Western stories from Shakespeare,
Dostoevsky, Gorky, and Tolstoy, and has turned them into Throne of Blood, Ran,
The Bad Sleep Well, The Idiot, The Lower Depths, Ikiru, and Red Beard.

But do Kurosawa’s remakes fall under the same category as current Hollywood
adaptations of East Asian dramas, comedies, and suspense and horror stories?
What does globalization play in the cross-cultural exchange of stories, film plots,
and cinematic technique? How does it affect creativity, originality, and artistic
integrity?

Outsourcing

It is a very crude way of putting it, but Hollywood has been doing it for quite some
time already. In a way, globalization has put films on the rack beside soap,
cereals, and shampoo.

One only has to think of the cost savings in buying a ready-made script with
everything that has gone before its completion: the formulation of a basic idea,
the development of a prospectus to investors, and the writing and rewriting of the
script that bears no assurance of an idea will go down the pipeline. And this is
not all.

The script has also been tested through the entire movie being sold and shown
to audiences. So after the drafting of the script, a Hollywood studio also saves on
the entire production and marketing process in finding out a movie’s commercial
viability. Once the elements of the original movie find the perfect mix and
interaction—as it were, once the movie finds its perfect recipe for success—
Hollywood studios already have most of the work cut out for them. The market
has already been tested; there is less risk. Only the transliteration of the cast, the
setting, the cinematography, and all the other elements from Asian to American
is necessary.
But there are times that even perfectly reproduced movies lack the original magic
ingredient.

Lacking Spice

Before the end of 2007, Sony Pictures released an Indian-language feature film,
Saawariya, which at the time of its release directly competed with Om Shanti
Om, which was locally produced.

Saawariya was based on Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel White Nights, while Om

Shanti Om was a song-and-dance production, lauded by critics as pure
“Bollywood spice”.

The rapid growth of India’s film industry and the country’s emerging economy
have inspired foreign investors to take a slice of the very lucrative Bollywood pie.
But the disappointing commercial performance of Saawariya only reminds
investors and viewers that marketing networks and financial resources are not
enough to impress and capture the attention of audiences.

In terms of remakes, this only says that while transferring films from Asian
languages and cultures into American versions, the subtle elements vital to the
Asian films’ success may not be conveyed; proven recipes for success do not
always work.

But lately, the immense success enjoyed by certain genres in Chinese cinema
seems to prove otherwise.

Exoticism

If Japan has successfully exported its horror genre to Hollywood, banking on its
rich culture of ghost stories and storytelling, Chinese filmmakers have had
relative success in bringing abroad films from the historical and wuxia, or martial
arts, genres. And compared to J-Horror, which need to be remade before
released in the West, these Chinese films are marketed as is, with only the
benefit of subtitles.

Films of the historical genre that have succeeded in the West include Chen
Kaige’s Farewell My Concubine, Zhang Yimou’s Ju Dou and Raise the Red
Lantern, and most recently, Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution. Among recent wuxia
movies, Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, has achieved the widest
acclaim. It’s phenomenal success has prompted subsequent releases of martial
arts films, such as House of Flying Daggers, Hero, The Promise, and The
Banquet, which, like Kurosawa’s The Bad Sleep Well, was loosely based on
Shakespeare’s Hamlet. These can be marketed as is, unlike J-Horror movies,
which need to be remade since settings and characterizations can easily be
transliterated from East to West.

It would make sense to reason out that the success of Japanese horror and
Chinese period and wuxia films in the international market lies in the fact that,
again in business terms, there is a demand for such movies and only Japanese
and Chinese filmmakers can best serve that demand.

One can also surmise that such film genres are most accessible to Westerners
because they easily fall into Americans’ perception of China and Japan—easily
distinguishable from their own culture. Exotic and novel. Perhaps this is what
international investors have had in mind pouring funds in such films and in
entering this type of market.

Other genres, including Wong Kar-Wai’s “art house” films (In the Mood for Love,
Happy Together, and 2046) are much harder to market since they have themes
that are already presumably covered by Hollywood films. Even the tag “art
house” film seems unfortunate, since such movies are already differentiated from
the mainstream, bound only to have limited screenings and promotions. Even
though Western films may have similar stories and experiences with Asian
movies, the values and viewpoints are definitely different. An open exchange of
ideas is hampered with the imposition of such limitations. Others may say that
this is inevitable since cinema after all is still part of an industry; decisions should
still be driven by profitability.

Exchanging Ideas

If anything at all, the most positive effect globalization has had on world cinema
is the exchange of ideas, the access into different cultures, stories, and histories.
America does not merely benefit from Asian cinema by learning new ways of
doing kung fu or by discovering different ways of shocking nerves. Asia in its turn
has been continuously honing its cinematic techniques.

Writers often say that there are no new stories, that perhaps Shakespeare has
already covered the entire gamut of human experience. This may be true to an
extent. But we may continue to see in world cinema not just the ideas according
to the English bard, but also according to Akira Kurosawa, Ang Lee, Zhang
Yimou, and Park Chan-Wook, along with the insights of all the Speilbergs,
Scorseses, Polanskis, and Coppolas in the ever-evolving global film industry.