Ring remake

[Giome]

The interview he did with KFC Cinema can be found here:
http://www.kfccinema.com/articles/royleeinterview/royinterview.html

Guillaume

-----Original Message-----
From: Stephen Cremin <asianfilmlibrary at mac.com>
To: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu <KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu>
Date: Saturday, October 19, 2002 12:18 AM
Subject: Re: Ring remake


> From talking to invariably frustrated Korean and Japanese buyers, I get 
>the impression that Western sales agents aren't really tuned in to what 
>sells in Asia.  I'm probably looking at things too simplistically, but 
>there seems to be patterns such as the "beautiful boy" factor which 
>must triple the value of Japanese sales.  But Western films tend to hit 
>these buttons more by accident than design.  And with, say, a Hong Kong 
>film with Japanese locations and stars, the producer is more often 
>trying to bring a fashionable Japanese flavour to the film to boost the 
>domestic box office.  Japanese distribution is a secondary concern.
>
>Columbia Tristar has gone to the other extreme.  Funding Asian movies 
>whose primary target is the local audience, but with international 
>distribution down the line.  They're still trying to find the winning 
>formula, and other companies are following in their steps.  Columbia 
>have been largely hands off artistically, giving directors free reign 
>outside casting and script approval.  But casting has been the major 
>weakness of these films to date; in particular the token foreign 
>actors.  But these are presumably teething problems and next year's 
>crop looks more hopeful.
>
>There's been several articles profiling Roy Lee recently: Variety, 
>Screen International, Los Angeles Times ... even Kentucky Fried Cinema 
>website.  He doesn't understand any Asian languages.  Seems very much 
>the right guy at the right time with the right Hollywood connections.  
>Apparently, he gets a lot of hate mail from Asian film fans.
>
>Stephen
>
>
>On Sunday, October 20, 2002, at 01:38 AM, jeffrey isaacs wrote:
>
>>  From: jeffrey isaacs <jdi1 at midway.uchicago.edu>
>Date: Sun Oct 20, 2002  1:38:39 AM Etc/GMT
>To: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
>Subject: Ring remake
>Reply-To: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
>
>Just heard a very good 5 minute story put together by Beth Accomando 
>for PRI's The World radio program on the release of Ring remake which 
>attributes Ring and a dozen other Asian film remakes (that many?) to 
>producer Roy Lee. Did anyone catch the piece on the radio? Can anyone 
>tell more about Roy Lee?
>
>The PRI story claimed that Asian films are perfect for remake by 
>Hollywood because they are in familiar genres and because studio execs 
>get to look at "fully realized product" before having to decide if it'd 
>'work' - meaning, I gather, if it would work for American audiences. 
>The story goes on to discuss the changes made to adapt Ring for 
>Hollywood.
>
>One of the producers for Ring remake described the Japanese original as 
>ambiguous, vague, having clues that don't match up. The makers of the 
>new version have apparently fixed that problem and have "turned an 
>inexplicable horror into a detective story." I only watched the 
>Japanese film once (Ring gekijyo kanzenban, I think it was) but it 
>seemed to me to be tightly organized and to adhere to Hollywood's rules 
>for narrative clarity.  It was certainly no more confounding than an 
>episode of X-files - with which it seems to share an aesthetic of 
>perpetually postponed resolution and, of course, both are set up as 
>serials - which, I gather, Ring remake is not. Interestingly, the 
>director of Ring remake, Gore Verbinski, said he tried to give the 
>"false feeling" that the narrative moves forward. Doesn't it?
>
>The radio story ended with a comment on the reaction of a Japanese film 
>industry representative who supposedly described the Hollywood remake 
>as "very good, very scary, very American." I interpret the very 
>American comment as a good indication that Ring remake will not be very 
>well received in Japan - not because Japanese audiences don't like 
>American films, clearly they do.
>
>People on this list have commented on the strategic use of recognizable 
>actors from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Korea in Japanese film and vice-versa 
>to make films appeal to audiences in more than one country.
>
>In listening to the story, it occurred to me that despite the fact that 
>everyone knows that audiences outside of the US contribute a lot 
>towards the earnings of US-made films, those people actually making the 
>films in Hollywood don't seem to give sufficient weight to 
>international audiences when they are planning their films. Maybe it is 
>only Asian audiences that are under recognized?
>
>For those of you who know the nuts and bolts of how Hollywood films are 
>planned and made, I ask, could this possibly be true? Doesn't some 
>financial forecaster chime in with, "make it resemble the Japanese 
>original in tone a little more and you can count on $15mil extra from 
>Japanese rentals"? Maybe this is a secret known only to the agents for 
>Jean Reno and Steven Segal? Or, is the potential profit too 
>insignificant to make it worth raising in a Hollywood pre-production 
>meeting?
>
>You can listen to the PRI story at http://www.theworld.org (October 18 
>show) - but it appears that PRI's The World shows are available on-line 
>for only a week.
>
>Jeff Isaacs
>
>Ph.D. student, University of Chicago
>Instructor, Yokohama City University
>
>