Hollywood to remake another Korean film
Hollywood is remaking Oldboy.
Unlike other failed Chungmuro-to-Hollywood remakes, this one carries a lot more cachet — production is in talks with Steven Spielberg to direct, and Will Smith to star. Well, I don’t care and I’ll say:
No. No, no, no no NO.
Look. I didn’t really care that much about My Sassy Girl because I pretty much knew it would get the shit throwaway rom-com treatment and flop. I didn’t really care too much about The Lake House even though I love Il Mare, because that, too, was a crap adaptation that would barely make a blip on the radar. I don’t even care about them remaking Sam-soon because even though I won’t write it off as an imminent failure, I don’t actually think it will happen. And if it does, it will bear few of the hallmarks that made the kdrama such a hit. The Mirror is bound for the B-level horror shelf, and I’m already bracing myself against the new remake of the excellent Tale of Two Sisters. 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.
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Tags: Hollywood, Park Chan-wook, ranty/ravey, remakes
