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NEWS: Director Spike Lee Signs Onto Oldboy Film Remake

Toriko36 wrote:

Seriously??? Hollywood needs to leave Foreign entities alone. The manga is great, the korean film was excellent and there is just no need to remake it into an American version. Stupid, real stupid.

uh, did you forget Asia has been also remaking American film also. Are you going to complain about that too? I believe I mention this on a previous article.

Geez, I heard of people bashing on American remake of Asian film, but never the opposite when Asia remake American film. I have seen people that bash American remake of Asian film praising Asian remake of American film and attacking the American original calling them crap and say the Asian remake is so much better, that shows Asian supremacy is way out of control. I wonder what would happen if Japan/Korea remade Twilight or China remake Dr. Zhivago? I bet nobody complain and openly bash the original movie and saying "Asian are better and F(bleep) you, America" .

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I would love to see a Japanese film maker remake a classic American movie just to see how some of you would react.

They already did:

Sideways
Ghost
Paranormal Activity (well it's more of a semi-sequel, semi-remake)

Japan will remake 2 more American films:

An Affair to Remember

Working Girls

I'm still waiting for my Japanese remake of the Godfather (Sonny Chiba would fit in as Vito Corleone). Of all the Japanese remake, not one even complain about it. The same thing happen when China/HK remade Cellular into Connected. Also nobody complain about Zhang Yimou doing a loose remake of Blood Simple into A Simple Noodle Story, and I never heard any problem about China's remake of High School Musical. I bet nobody will complain when South Korea will remake Breakfast at Tiffany's.

Hey guys...what if he...you know...retains the integrity of the I.P.?

mdo7 wrote:

Toriko36 wrote: Seriously??? Hollywood needs to leave Foreign entities alone. The manga is great, the korean film was excellent and there is just no need to remake it into an American version. Stupid, real stupid. uh, did you forget Asia has been also remaking American film also. Are you going to complain about that too? I believe I mention this on a previous article. Geez, I heard of people bashing on American remake of Asian film, but never the opposite when Asia remake American film. I have seen people that bash American remake of Asian film praising Asian remake of American film and attacking the American original calling them crap and say the Asian remake is so much better, that shows Asian supremacy is way out of control. I wonder what would happen if Japan/Korea remade Twilight or China remake Dr. Zhivago? I bet nobody complain and openly bash the original movie and saying "Asian are better and F(bleep) you, America" . Quote: I would love to see a Japanese film maker remake a classic American movie just to see how some of you would react. They already did: Sideways Ghost Paranormal Activity (well it's more of a semi-sequel, semi-remake) Japan will remake 2 more American films: An Affair to Remember Working Girls I'm still waiting for my Japanese remake of the Godfather (Sonny Chiba would fit in as Vito Corleone). Of all the Japanese remake, not one even complain about it. The same thing happen when China/HK remade Cellular into Connected. Also nobody complain about Zhang Yimou doing a loose remake of Blood Simple into A Simple Noodle Story, and I never heard any problem about China's remake of High School Musical. I bet nobody will complain when South Korea will remake Breakfast at Tiffany's.

I agree with you, mdo7. I mean, purists need to accept that it is the Japanese publishers' decision to let U.S. filmakers do movies based on their manga properties in the same way we accept that it's Marvel Comics' decision to let Madhouse do its "Marvel Anime" multiseries. It's not like Spike Lee bought all the intellectual rights to "Oldboy" and decided tor reboot it; it's just a separate "Oldboy" continuity meant to appeal to the tastes of mainstream U.S. audiences.

The Famicom version, released a year earlier in Japan and developed by Jaleco themselves, is a substantially worse port. The graphics are, again, totally different, and the characters have been redrawn to look smaller and cuter. All of them, what with their empty eyes and vacant smiles, look like they jumped out of a Cathy comic strip. This is the only version to have a real Game Over screen, which shows the characters as angels and looks particularly ludicrous. The box cover shows them all as super deformed dwarves, although at least there's some cool artwork in the manual. The rooms are even more compact than the NES version, and the ones that are multi-screen don't scroll at all. Various background details are missing (Chuck the Plant is gone entirely, as if the programmers didn't get the joke.) Sandy now wears a full dress instead of a tube top, and Weird Ed looks more like a stereotypical nerd, although it does have the nude statue that was taken out the NES version.

There are other small changes due to the localization - the dime becomes a 100 yen coin, and the Three Guys Who Publish Anything apparently have an address in Tokyo. There's even a Japanese style mailbox in the first screen, which doesn't entirely make sense, because there's a regular mailbox in front of the porch two screens over. Outside of a few original tunes here and there (and an especially aggravating "Pause" ditty), most of the game is played without music, much like the PC versions. The only noises are the annoying footstep noise when your character shuffles from place to place. Unlike the NES version, the characters walk slowly and awkwardly. The hotspots don't give descriptions, but you can see their descriptions holding down the B button and highlighting them. There's no save system, and is instead replaced with 104 character passwords, making them one of the longest of any game on the system.

Sunday Silence wrote:

And you know Lee will find some way to slant some racism angle into the film. Maybe how the spoiler[rape of the daughter of the imprisoned guy by him] is some symbolism of the plight of the black man in today's society.

Yep, like those racial screeds, Son of Sam, 25th Hour and Inside Man.

...he makes great films about race relations, but he also makes good to great crime dramas. I wouldn't be surprised if he casts a black actor in the lead, hey Speilberg wanted Will Smith in the roll, but I doubt he'd tack on racial meaning.

Thank you.

Seriously, some of the reactions to this news are outright offensive. You'd think Tyler Perry was directing it or something. Can we at least wait for some kind of media before we start freaking out?

After Eastwood told him to "shut his face" and stop criticizing him about not including African-Americans in his 2006 Iwo Jima movies, "Flags of Our Fathers" and "Letters From Iwo Jima," Lee's lashing out.

"First of all, the man is not my father and we're not on a plantation either," he told ABCNEWS.com. "He's a great director. He makes his films, I make my films. The thing about it though, I didn't personally attack him. And a comment like 'a guy like that should shut his face' -- come on Clint, come on. He sounds like an angry old man right there."

Lee has a proposal for Eastwood:

"If he wishes, I could assemble African-American men who fought at Iwo Jima and I'd like him to tell these guys that what they did was insignificant and they did not exist," he said. "I'm not making this up. I know history. I'm a student of history. And I know the history of Hollywood and its omission of the one million African-American men and women who contributed to World War II."

So in all fairness, yes, criticism of Lee is justified due to his past actions.

uh, did you forget Asia has been also remaking American film also. Are you going to complain about that too? I believe I mention this on a previous article.

These people fail to notice that Japan has heavily edit/altered American cartoon like Beast Wars is one example. I have seen purists/Japanese supremacists hating on American edit of anime/manga but praised how Japan butchered Beast Wars. Japan is no stranger to renaming American cartoon characters same way how we did that like the American cartoon The Herculoids which was known Kaijû Ô Tâgan (Monster King Targan) in Japan.

So in all fairness, yes, criticism of Lee is justified due to his past actions. We can't predict the future, but we can learn from the past and make possible assumptions about the future and see if they do come true. And given that Lee is abit....."outspoken" in his views.....there has to be some questions about his integrity.

I'm not really a hypocrite if I don't want to watch (or more accurately hear) Robotech or Shogun Assassin just because the Japanese edit some American stuff too. How stupid the Japanese edits might be, they usually aren't forced as the only version to see in other countries, as was the with Robotech and Shogun Assassin in the 80s.

Sure it's a generalization, but to be honest, I welcome an American adaptation of Oldboy. I've got no real interest in the Korean movie; I'm sure a lot of people feel the same way.

Give me a break. There were plenty of reasons as to why Robotech was forced on the American market in the way it was (most notably the length of television seasons). Getting a Macross release a million years later from ADV was really the only way they could reasonably do it. Really bad example.

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Sure it's a generalization, but to be honest, I welcome an American adaptation of Oldboy. I've got no real interest in the Korean movie; I'm sure a lot of people feel the same way.

Yeah I know the type of people that consider watching a foreign works to be an injustice to their right to be entertained in their native tongue and tailored to fit the local mores.

teferi wrote:

Give me a break. There were plenty of reasons as to why Robotech was forced on the American market in the way it was (most notably the length of television seasons). Getting a Macross release a million years later from ADV was really the only way they could reasonably do it. Really bad example.

My point, which you somehow managed to miss, was that the Japanese usually keep their edits and remakes to themselves, instead distributing them to other countries with heavy marketing. How could anyone complain about the Japanese Sideways if it has small foreign release at best and the original is easily available? In comparison Harmony Gold promotes Robotech over Macross and it doesn't even credit any of the creators or animators.