Do Asians Make Bad Western Movies?

[zhris]

The title is not meant to be a slight on anyone, just couldn't think of a better way to word it. Anyway, moving on.

Seems like a growing trend is for Hollywood to remake a popular Asian movie, usually horror (Ring, Oldboy, Ju-On, Godzilla, Internal Affairs, Usagi Yojimbo, etc), and usually not very well. Does the opposite happen, and if so are Asian film makers better at remaking them? I know Bollywood churns them out by the truckload, but I'm specifically referring to Japanese/ Chinese/ Korean films.

[Zero Hunter]

The Good The Bad and The Weird was a very fun movie.

[Cyke]

Here are two articles from last year about the topic:

http://www.themalaymailonline.com/sh...llywood-movies

http://asianfilmist.com/12-films-remade-in-asia/ (this one isn't restricted to just American movies, though)

Interesting to note, Clint Eastwood really liked the Japanese remake of Unforgiven (one of my favorite movies of all time).

On a side note, I really dig Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter. To be clear, it's an American production and not an Asian remake, but it's centered around Japanese main characters and inspired by an American classic: a Japanese woman is so obsessed with the movie Fargo that she embarks on a quest from Japan to Fargo to look for the briefcase of money that Steve Buscemi's character hid at the end of the movie.

[Kieran_Frost]

When you consider Kurosawa's films have been adapted into some of the best westerns, I'd say we can't discount them outright.

[harashkupo]

The Good The Bad and The Weird was a very fun movie.

HA! beat me to it.

[Deadxman]

When you consider Kurosawa's films have been adapted into some of the best westerns, I'd say we can't discount them outright.

[Ambaryerno]

When you consider Kurosawa's films have been adapted into some of the best westerns, I'd say we can't discount them outright.

For that matter, Star Wars was heavily influenced by Kurosawa (The Hidden Fortress, specifically).

Also, The Magnificent Seven.

[VivaChiba]

Did I read the O.P. wrong or was the he/she specifically asking if Korea, Japan, HK and/or China remake western-world films, and if so, do they suck as much as the American versions of films originally from those countries?

Well, I don't know how often it happens, but I someone bought me the DVD for Connected http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1156506/reference and I loved it!
When I watched the Producer's interview on the DVD, I was surprise to discover that it was a remake of Cellular (the producer pointed out that Hollywood remakes Asian films al the time, so felt it would make a change). I then went and tracked down Cellular... and I was disappointed.

So, on the basis of having seen and compared one western/American film remade in HK, I can say that it not only didn't suck, but was better than the original by far (though, had I seen the original first, several plot points would have been ruined for me, surely resulting in my not enjoying it as much.
For the record, I didn't like the lead's character in the Hollywood original, Statham seemed too much like a cardboard cut-out of a villain, Kim Basinger just wasn't working as well as Barbie Hsu and overall, the remake was simply superior).

[Cyke]

When you consider Kurosawa's films have been adapted into some of the best westerns, I'd say we can't discount them outright.

I think OP is asking in the other direction: the West (particularly America) adapts Asian films all the time, the question is do Asian countries adapt movies from the West, i.e. American or British films, among others.

If Kurosawa remade Frank Capra or Alfred Hitchcock or John Ford films for Japanese audiences, they'd probably go into this thread.

[simbob4000]

The Good The Bad and The Weird was a very fun movie.

So was this



Seems they make good westerns.

[simbob4000]

The title is not meant to be a slight on anyone, just couldn't think of a better way to word it. Anyway, moving on.

Seems like a growing trend is for Hollywood to remake a popular Asian movie, usually horror (Ring, Oldboy, Ju-On, Godzilla, Internal Affairs, Usagi Yojimbo, etc), and usually not very well. Does the opposite happen, and if so are Asian film makers better at remaking them? I know Bollywood churns them out by the truckload, but I'm specifically referring to Japanese/ Chinese/ Korean films.

Zhang Yimou, who is a very good director, made a very shitty remake of Blood Simple. You don't see a whole lot of official remakes going that way, I'm guessing because it's a money thing, but they remake our movies too, and they can turn out to be pretty terrible too. There's a movie called Dragon where a good deal of it is based on A History of Violence, and it's a pretty bad movie.