Another Hollywood Remake: Oldboy

by Latoya Peterson

Director Chan-Wook Park shocked the hell out of South Korean audiences in 2003, with his theatrical release Oldboy, the second film in the disturbing The Vengence trilogy.

Now, dear readers, I hate horror movies but I love psychological thrillers. Hence, I watched Oldboy. And while I really enjoyed the movie, it is definitely *not* for the faint of heart or weak of stomach. So, imagine my surprise while perusing Dramabeans to see a post describing how Will Smith is going to star in the US remake.

Javabeans, main poster on the blog, is not pleased.

The bastardization of Korean films by Hollywood is annoying, but I can close my eyes and forget about them because they have largely failed to make any sort of impact.

But this upsets me, and not because I’m protective of Oldboy or anything particular to the film itself. Although I do think they’ve picked an ambitious project, it’s more that this is the straw that broke the camel’s back.

What pisses me off is that there’s this growing sense that somehow Hollywood is the end-all and be-all of everything, EVAR, and that somehow everything good must be purchased and repackaged and buffed and relabeled with the Hollywood stamp. God, Hollywood, YOU DON’T HAVE TO PUT YOUR THUMB IN EVERY SINGLE GODDAMN PIE.

Can’t you leave some things alone? Why do you always have to wave your dick in everyone’s face and assume we will marvel at its size? Is that crude? Well, I find your brash cultural insensitivity crude. It’s not the remaking itself that I take issue with — nothing intrinsically wrong with adaptations of stories — but the arrogant, careless attitude with which you scour the international markets for more carcasses to pick to feed your own bloated ego. Why do you seem to think that nothing is complete until you have co-opted it for your own commercial gain?

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Better yet, if it ain’t broke, DON’T BREAK IT.

Suddenly, the conversation over there got a lot more interesting. Now, I have enjoyed a great many films from overseas and I understand a lot of the frustration when Hollywood decides to remake a movie – generally speaking, they fuck it up. While The Departed was a decent remake (and it was received well – the theater I watched it in gave a standing ovation to the credits) Infernal Affairs (the original) is the better movie. I could write volumes on the difference between the emotional mood and the treatment of the characters in each film, but suffice it to say, I enjoy a lot of complexity in characters – something that tends to get stripped out in the Hollywood versions.

However, javabeans post touched on more than just irritation at a potentially shoddy remake – the comments section quickly became a discussion of the globalization of media and cultural borrowing.

annonymous – Nov 7, 2008 at 12:32 pm

well I dunno. While I do agree that the majority of these Korean remakes (or any other remake of a foreign media) have been pretty bad I don’t think it’s to the extent that has made you so mad. Most likely a lot of the people involved in putting out these movies are out there just to make an easy buck, but I’m sure that some of the creative staff honestly just wants to share a good story to an audience who may not have heard or will even had a chance to see the original and because of that maybe these people will be encouraged to see the original. That’s what happened to me when I saw “Shall we dance?”

Granted the other movies were flops (the originals weren’t that great either imo), but I think that if people like Steven Spielberg and Will Smith do get involved with this project, it will be given the due respect and effort that these other movies lacked. Ugly Betty is a remake too and I love that show to bits and pieces (and although I never saw the original I wish I could), I don’t really see a show like Ugly Betty being an ugly thing that Hollywood has made to show the world it’s better than anything else. And let’s not forget that Old Boy is based off a Japanese manga. I’m sure a lot of manga purists probably didn’t appreciate it being adapted into a movie when it first came out in Korea.

I plan on keeping an open mind and treating these remakes on a case by case basis. The remakes aren’t being made by the same people everytime so I don’t think it’s really fair to write off something that could potentially be really good.

Ivuson – Nov 7, 2008 at 1:07 pm

NOW you notice!?!

Sincerely,

Japan

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