Japanese influence on horror

Thouny cthouny
Thu Nov 11 01:44:03 EST 2004


Regarding the choice of location for the Grudge, I recently
read in AERA an article that argued that since The Ring,
set in a contemporary American town in especially big
houses, did no do well in rendering the same kind of
claustrophobic atmosphere you would get from Japanese
houses/apartments, it was decided to set  the Grudge in
Japan.
Do what you want of the explanation, which still raises
interesting and ever-present questions and oppositions,
"Japan is a small country and therefore has small houses vs
America", cultural essentialism (Horror as an essential
form of culture?!), and more interestingly the question of
adaptation-translation in relation to a posited original.
And of style, which is definitely the central issue I
think.
Technically speaking,the Ring could have given the same
kind of claustrophobic atmosphere you get from Ringu. Why
was it decided to do otherwise?

Also, I do not think you can so easily define Pop-Culture
Hollywood style cinema by "clarity and easy to
understand"... 

Christophe

 --- zaki jaihutan <zaki.j at justice.com> wrote: 
> 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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