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Volume 13, Issue #3. Published on February 28, 2005
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The Grudge was originally a Japanese movie entitled Ju-On .
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Hollywood Runs Out of Ideas
Plagerizing Japanese Movies Decided to Be A Good Idea.
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Brandon Hamilton
Asian Pacific Review
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The Ring and The Grudge are two of the better horror movies that have come out in recent years. They have complex and interesting stories, disturbing images, twists and seem original to American audiences. The irony is that they are remakes.
Both films originally came out in Japan, Ringu first came out in 1998, and Japanese title for The Grudge, Ju-On came out in 2000. You would be hard pressed to know though unless you happened to pick them off the wall of the foreign film section of a video store. Just as with the anime revolution, seeing the originals means having subtitles.
Seeing the popularity of some movies, Hollywood seems to have found a new source of ideas, remaking Japanese horror films. Even sequels are in Hollywood's target. Like any good American horror movie franchise, there are plenty of sequels that have spun off from the originals success.
Already The Ring 2 and Dark Water are due to be released this summer, both originally Japanese. The Grudge also has a Japanese sequel. Who knows how long it will be before it is remade for the U.S. public.
It is not necessarily bad that Hollywood decided to start picking up other countries horror movies and start remaking them. There is only so much a person can take of seeing Dracula remakes. Even though the movies themselves are not originals, to the majority of Americans seeing them, they will be new. In addition, it seems for once that they have managed to not once, but twice remade movies that were as good as the originals.
Some may argue that remakes and sequels are often times inferior to the original. In reality almost every story idea has been used already, every movie is probably a remake of something nowadays. So as long as the movie is done well people generally do not mind.
Jennifer Lopez and Richard Gere's Shall We Dance interestingly enough was also originally a Japanese movie. However, many fans of the original thought it was not done very well. Therefore, not all imports can be said to be blockbusters.
Therefore, as long as Hollywood can keep turning out remakes that capture the spark of the original that made them successful, they can keep siphoning off Japan. Once they put out another Godzilla it maybe time to move on.
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