Korean originals VS American remakes.

OLDBOY: original [left] VS remake [right]

Have you ever watched a film from another country and thought to yourself: "man, this is so awesome, I love it!" ..only to find that a reboot/remake was on it's way in a year or two? As someone who is starting to appreciate Korean film more now, I've decided that it's probably a good time to bring up my thoughts on how many films from other countries are being "Americanized" [which means it'll be dulled down..usually.] 

The biggest offender I want to mention is Oldboy; yes, I'm going there. Oldboy is a film I talk about constantly being one of my favorite foreign films of all time. [hence why I used it above! if you want to read my thoughts on the original Oldboy, you can read the review here]  It's graphic, it's ridiculous in every way, and somehow, you just feel fucking hardcore following Oh-Dai-Su [until that ending..] through his revenge.. and then they fucking remade it..y'know, for American audiences. Now, to be fair - I haven't seen the remake yet [but it is on Netflix, so I will soon enough..] but I don't understand why it was felt to be necessary, I mean the film still stands well for being from 2003!

SPOILER: I don't see this scene holding up well with American audiences..

But obviously, that isn't enough for Hollywood [who, as I've mentioned before, has no imagination left.]. Now, they want to remake I SAW THE DEVIL [which as it turns out - I also reviewed..read it here]! If you thought Oldboy was nuts, and haven't seen I SAW THE DEVIL, you should definitely get on that: because it takes things extremely far - far enough that I can't even see the MPAA being okay with the content!

good luck translating this for America.

 The last Korean film I'm going to mention is a special film that's held to my heart that is [unfortunately] in talks to be remade: [I actually bought this film yesterday, since I didn't already own it] that film is none other than Audition. It's a film from 1999 from Director Takashi Miike, so you know you're already fucked. It follows a widowed man, who is convinced to hold a 'fake audition' to find a suitable new wife. that's all I'm gonna say, since it's more of a "watch this!" kind of film rather than me recite the whole film. None the less, it's eerie, it's brutal, and it even got spot #11 on Bravo's list of 100 scariest movie moments ! [obviously, the list has spoilers!]

like I said on my Letterboxd review of Auditon: just cause she's cute, doesn't mean you're safe..

So what films do you feel should not be remade? I only talked about Korean films here, but obviously, there are so many films that have already been remade that it isn't worth talking about them all. [I'm not going to mention A Nightmare On Elm Street, Fright Night, or even Friday The 13th: they speak for themselves..] But, I guess I can't complain too much. Because sometimes, remakes do it right - look at the remake of Evil Dead from 2013 from Director Fede Alvarez! [he's also known for the remake of The Hills Have Eyes!]

For a film I was skeptical about, I actually really enjoyed this remake.

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