One producer saw the financial benefit of remakes and made an entire career out of it. Roy Lee of Vertigo Entertainment has an entire portfolio of films which have been transferred from an Asian audience to that of the English speaking world. From Hideo Nakata’s Ringu (1998) up until the most recent releases such as Spike Lee’s remake of Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy (2003), Lee has ported many successful Asian films to the English speaking world. He even produced Quarantine in an unusual step out of the Asian-American cinematic style his company has become known for.
The same rules seem to apply to the remakes of each of the films that he has been involved in, and it becomes even more evident that nobody seems able to remake a film for American audiences without seriously damaging the original content. Starting from the beginning, Ringu became The Ring (2002) and was a massive success. What had become the highest grossing horror film of all time in Japan quickly rose to the highest heights when unveiled to the English speaking world. The film itself grossed impressively, raking in $2million more than it had in Japan, whilst the American version grossed a thunderous $80million more than the original release. It is clear at this point that at least financially there was an avenue of opportunity to be explored here. It was a fear of technology which united the two cultures so intensely, unifying two very different nations under one terrifying truth that technology holds so much power within the average person’s life.
Whilst the financial and cultural benefits were widespread the remake was not without criticism; a number of academics questioned the decision to underplay the maternal themes in The Ring, where they were very key to Ringu’s narrative. Regardless the film was a success and marked a move forward in the adaptation of Asian films.
Following the success of The Ring, Vertigo Entertainment repeated the process by remaking Takashi Shimizu’s Ju-On: The Grudge (2002). The remake, The Grudge (2004), was also directed by Shimizu and also received extremely good box office results. Whereas the original had lost $3million in Japan, the remake raked in a solid $100million, smashing even the takings of The Ring. By this point it was evident that a homologous culture of fear was being created and exploited by Vertigo. This is not to say that it is in anyway underhanded or wrong, people choose to watch the films they choose and there is very little to be done about that. However it does beg the question of why did the American audience only get to know this genre from the original ideas of Japanese writers and directors? Something that has such inherent success should surely breed originality and creativity, rather than the rehashing of old ideas. The same happened with Nakata’s next project, Honogurai Mizu no soko kara a.k.a Dark Water (2002) which was remade by Vertigo into Dark Water (2005) as they failed to even take enough initiative to change the title this time. The remake was directed by Walter Salles and was a box office success, much like its predecessors. Whilst this pattern was functioning effectively, every time a new film was remade into another get rich quick scheme it felt arbitrary and cold.
Branching out a small amount, Lee set his sights on the Hong Kong action films and brought Andrew Lau’s Infernal Affairs (2002) to the attention of Martin Scorsese, who transformed it into arguably one of his best films, The Departed (2006). Whilst the pattern of remaking followed the same basic path, The Departed gained even more critical acclaim than Vertigo Entertainment’s previous productions. The reason for this is that whilst most of Vertigo’s imports are inherently Asian, the Hong Kong action films are filled with gun-toting supermen taken straight from American Action Films 101. Once again two completely different cultures are united through one shared passion. When before the mutual fear of technology was the only thing that held the films together like secondary school papier-mâché, The Departed was a remake which made sense. Not only is the genre originally part of the staple American cinematic diet, but the adaptation of the cultural narrative was comprehensive and applicable to the circumstances. By replacing the Chinese Triad with the Irish Mob there is not only room for expansive storytelling but a small sliver of truth was imprinted onto the film through the loose basing of the main characters on genuine FBI agents and Irish mobsters. Through this reinforced method of reinventing the story, Scorsese and the writer William Monahan manage to encompass the narrative feel of a Hong Kong crime thriller whilst keeping the context unique and refreshing.
Sadly this instance of fresh ideas was but a single drop in the ocean, and the pattern of lifeless rehashing continued to the point of boredom. Eventually all of the remaking came to a head with the highly press-focused Oldboy (2003) remake. The new film, also to be titled Oldboy (2013) would be directed by Spike Lee and would mark a decade since the release of the original. A number of strange facts revolved around this, the main one being that the original Oldboy was the second film of a trilogy known as The Vengeance Trilogy, which is referred to by some as Park Chan-wook’s magnum opus. The film itself rose to cult status over the decade, and was picked up by Roy Lee and brought to the attention of Warner Bros. Unlike almost all of Vertigo’s other projects, the time they had to rework the script and hone it was greatly increased. Despite this the entire film felt sloppy and under-prepared. It failed to even qualify the messages put forth by the original and made changes to the script which were naught but detrimental to the entire concept of the film. If there was ever to be a poster-boy for bad remakes then Spike Lee’s Oldboy would certainly be it.
As the icing on the cake the film completely bombed in the box office, losing $27 million, and probably putting Roy Lee off attempting to translate anything remotely intellectual and culturally specific to an English speaking audience ever again.
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