Stop All the Damn Foreign Remakes!!

Why must Hollywood insist on taking amazing foreign cinema and destroying it? There are countless examples of studios taking film from around the world or right here in the USA and deciding to remake it. Simply it rarely ever works, but needless to say Hollywood continues to try us with good cinema turned bad.

Recently 3 remakes were announced and none of them are all that easy to stomach. First up is the insanely timeless Swedish vampire tale, "Let the Right One In." Matt Reeves director of Cloverfield recently announced he would be taking a bite out of the swedish tale with an American version. Next came the announcement that Steven Spielberg and Will Smith were teaming up to take a wack at the amazing South Korean film "Oldboy." Lastly, this week came news that newbie director Fredrik Bond will be directing a remake of another South Korean film, "The Host" in which Gore Verbinsky will produce.

All three of the original films are outstanding films and don't warrant the need for a remake. Allow American audiences to learn about these films on their own. For god sakes, make America read some subtitles and get out of the tendency of remaking every great foreign film. It seems every time, the U.S. version is dummied down or serverely loses the imapct anyways. Take for example [Rec.], its recent remake that released this year in cinemas, "Quarantine" was terrible! Everything great about [Rec.] was lost and instead we all got a typical zombie film. [Rec.] isn't even available to see here in the U.S. (unless you really persue it) and we already have a remake playing in local cinemas. Director of Let the Right One In, Tomas Alfredson feels the same as and wishes American audiences could just adapt to reading subtitles. He told Movie Zine, “Remakes should be made of movies that aren’t very good, that gives you the chance to fix whatever has gone wrong. I’m very proud of my movie and think it’s great, but the Americans might be of another opinion. The saddest thing for me would be to see that beautiful story made into something mainstream… I don’t like to whine, but of course - if you’d spent years on painting a picture, you’d hate to hear buzz about a copy even before your version. Why can’t you just read the subtitles?”

I hate the fact that actors like Will Smith see an amazing film such as Oldboy or Matt Reeves with Let the Right One In and are like, "I can make some serious money here in the States if I remake that for American audiences." They try to rationalize their choice to remake the film by saying they are delivering their interpretation of the film, but that is just bullshit, and we all know it. What about the original directors vision? Which hardly ever seems utilized. In rare instences like The Ring, the original director remade the film for American audiences, but how many more times has that ever happened? It's time Hollywood stops making all these remakes of films that should just be re-released in U.S. theaters in their original form.

What are your thoughts on all the foreign remakes? Should we just enjoy the original films or have them adapted to American cinema? Are you interested in any of these remakes? Have you seen any of the originals? Strikeback....