A string of
profitable remakes of East Asian films has prompted Hollywood to expand
its horizon in the East, which in turn, has started a trend of
globalizing the film industry - blending cultural and ethnic
differences, fusing cinematic styles and diverse techniques, and
homogenizing on-screen performances and off-screen talents.
After the success in remakes of the popular Japanese horror movies, Dark Water (2005), The Ring 1 & 2 (2002, 2005) and The Grudge
(2004), major Hollywood studios are trying to expand the American
market and capture the rapidly expanding Asian market by purchasing the
rights to motion pictures from South Korea, Japan, and Hong Kong for
remakes with Hollywood stellar casts. In fact, several dozens of Asian
films are slated for remakes to be shown in 2006. Furthermore, the
high-wired martial arts Chinese films, Zhang Yimou's Oscars-nominated The House of Flying Daggers (2004) and Hero (2002), and Ang Lee's Oscar-winning Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
(2000), have attained international acclaim after gaining recognition
and admiration in Hollywood. Nowadays, Asian films seem to be hot
commodities in the market!
Hollywood's
interest in Asian films is nothing new. Akira Kurosawa, a famous
Japanese director, had inspired many renown filmmakers for decades. John
Sturges' Western The Magnificent Seven (1960) was a remake of Kurosawa's classic Seven Samurai (1954). Sergio Leone's spaghetti Western A Fistful of Dollars (1964) was also a remake of his Yojimbo (1961). George Lucas' main characters in Star Wars (1977) were based on Kurosawa's drama The Hidden Fortress (1958).
When the legendary Bruce Lee introduced kung fu
to the silver screen in the 1970s, he had forever captured the American
fascination with martial arts. To this day, many action pictures have
adopted martial arts as the standards for fist-fight scenes. Director
Quentin Tarantino created the highly popular Kill Bill series, illustrating the best of the Japanese and Hong Kong martial arts genre. The Matrix
trilogy (1999-2003) featured martial arts moves shown in slow motion -
boxing kicks, flips and somersaults, long-distance leaps, and running up
walls.
Since the 1950s,
Hollywood overseas earnings have been climbing, especially in the Asian
region, where today American motion pictures account for 96 percent of
the box office tickets in Taiwan, 78 percent in Thailand, and 65 percent
in Japan. The potential for raking in more profits in Asia is promising
with the world's two largest populated countries undergoing rapid
economic development: China and India. The former has one of the fastest
growing economies in the world and the latter has been generating a
high turnout of white-collared workers, as well as churning out numerous
low-budget movies.
With economic,
institutional, and political power, Hollywood has been wielding its
influence worldwide without any real competition. However, as Hollywood
studios extend their ambitious efforts on high-tech special effects to
produce a blockbuster, they often find themselves burdened with
ballooning expenses. Nowadays, it takes an average $90 million to make
and market a Hollywood movie. To cut costs, filmmakers move their
production overseas to countries where labor is cheaper and union
regulations are not so restrictive.
Another way to
reduce the budget is to make sequels and remakes. Due to the consuming
time and energies involved in the arduous process of creating an
original motion picture, Hollywood studios often opt for sequels and
remakes - no matter how inferior they are in comparison with the
originals. In a remake, the director only needs to make slight
alterations to the original movie that has already been tested
profitable in the market.
Although
criticisms have been leveled at remakes, Hollywood continues the trend
to make them. In the retail business, DVD remakes actually bring in more
profits to the original pictures. Remakes seldom measure up to the
standards of the originals, particularly noticeable in foreign films.
The common complaints cited for a foreign film remake are as follows:
themes are not as deep or rich as in the original movie; character
development is sometimes neglected; plot points are weakened; and the
cultural aspect of the film is often lost in translation. To deal with
mounting criticisms, Hollywood studios have been hiring foreign
directors and screen writers to take control of American remakes. In
fact, Takashi Shimizu, the original director of The Grudge was tapped to do the American version, and Hideo Nakata, who directed the initial Japanese Ringu, took charge in making The Ring 2. Even
Jackie Chan, a Hong Kong superstar known for his martial arts comedy
and death-defying acrobatic stunts, had been given a free hand in
conducting his performances seen in his later Hollywood works - Rush Hour series, Shanghai Noon, and Shanghai Knights.
By poaching
popular stars and directors from other nations' industries, Hollywood
executives not only have raised global awareness of Asian talents but
also have forced Asian film centers to collaborate with each other to
survive the onslaught of Hollywood dominance in the film industry.
Behind the pan-Asian film cooperation lies the objective for the Asian
nations to outgun Hollywood's big-budget productions at their domestic
box offices. By banning Asian countries together as a single domestic
market, consisting mainly of Japan, Thailand, South Korea, Taiwan and
Singapore, the total population of these nations would be about 300
million, which is greater than the U.S. domestic market. The Japan-based
Sony Corporation has made the biggest investment in Asian production,
including Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. In 1995,
NHK, a Japanese public broadcast company, established a biennale film
project to co-produce five motion pictures from Asian countries to be
shown every odd year. Formed in 2000, Applause Pictures Limited produced
Three, a collaborated film project which contained three short
stories by three popular directors from three different countries:
Korea, Thailand, and Hong Kong. Applause Pictures was also responsible
for the Hong Kong/Thailand movie, The Eye, which is slated for an American remake due out in 2006.
In our high-tech
world, the Asian film industries face another obstacle - film piracy.
Despite many Asian movies being popular domestically in their respective
countries, much of the gains have been lost to pirated DVDs and
Internet downloading. Anti-piracy laws have to be strictly enforced by
the governments in all Asian nations in order for film industries to
earn any benefits.
As Hollywood
expands its influence globally, film industries around the world
consequently become increasingly integrated with one another, breaking
down the notion of a distinctly American, Chinese, or Indian cinema.
What has been emerging is a global cinema that features ubiquitous film
elements which can appeal to every individual in a global audience.
(First published on UniOrb.com, December 1, 2005)