Japanese influence on horror

[zaki jaihutan]

I think the influence of Japanesse psycho-horror movie
to Hollywood still remains to be seen. However, it
should be noted that Hollywood movies are build in a
'pop culture' style, which one of its characteristic is
clarity or easy to understand and fast paced. This can
be seen if we compare the difference between the Ring
and Ringu. As some of the Kinejapaners here have wrote
in previous mail,  Ringu is somewhat more 'misterious'
compare to the Ring, who comes to the point of being
'explicit' in everything. More to that, Ringu requires
a more attentive viewing since it has a very subtle
detail, and of course requires more patience because
everything come one by one, whereas the Ring requires
less of the aforesaid. That's why i think, it's
difficult to change the so called 'pop style' that has
guaranteed a big income and vast moviegoers for
Hollywood. What Hollywood ussually do is take the
necessary element (ussually the main idea) and present
it in a much simpler and easy to enjoy form. Other good
example for this is the movie 'Insomnia', the European
version requires more attention and patience.

As for the Grudge, i my self haven't seen the American
version. But i suspect that the choice of location is
somehow related to the fact that Sam Raimi is producing
this. Sam Raimi is very impressed with the original
Ju-On, so maybe he want to present the movie with color
as close as possible to the original ones. Well, this
is not a fact, and maybe someone here can help explain
the real reason for this (maybe a production reason?).
Anyway, i believe that the choice to shoot the Grudge
in its 'homeland' is not related to significant or
sophisticated reason such as cultural approach, so yes,
i don't think the Grudge shows 'strong influence' of
the so called Japanesse psycho-horror. Any other
thoughts every one ?

P.S: Just a thought, maybe i'm being too far here, but
Hollywood do came up with Shyamalan (as then continued
with other films like 'the Others'), whose approach i
think is very close with 'psycho horror' type, in a
sense that it plays more with your nerve with the
unexplainable instead of showing some long nailed
creature slaugtering people... 

 


On Wed, 10 Nov 2004 16:47:47 +0100, Giacomo Calorio
wrote:

> 
> Dear Kinejapaners...
> I'm writing a book about Japanese psycho-horror
movies,
> and I'd be glad to 
> listen your opinions about its influence worldwide in
> recent years. If Asian 
> production gave birth to many similar productions
after
> Ringu, it seems the 
> same cannot be said about Hollywood yet, apart from
the
> very succesful 
> remakes. I'm wondering whether the cause may be the
> cultural and religious 
> background Sadako & c. belong to, which is quite far
> from western one, or if 
> there's any specific social reason, or if it's just a
> matter of genre 
> tradition, production reasons and audience tastes.
> That seems connected to the fact that Shimizu's remake
> of Juon is still set in 
> Japan (I haven't seen the movie yet, I just read about
> that).
> Do you think there's been any inflence on Hollywood
> horrors after Verbinsky's 
> movies? If so, in what?
> 
> Another question (less serious, though)... I'm looking
> for the first Ring TV 
> series  (kanzenban), but I couldn't find it at all,
> while the second one 
> (saishusho) seems quite eaesily findable on ebay.
> 
> Could anyone help me?
> 
> thank you very much
> giacomo

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