Inquiry Concerning Japanese Remakes of American Films

[Michael McCaskey]

I will be giving a comparative lecture on American remakes of Japanese films soon, and am writing it up now. I have quite a lot of information on this subject, from the present and the past, but as a comparison I tried to think of significant Japanese remakes of American films, and came up with little.

Kurosawa made films based on MacBeth and King Lear, and apparently his Wonderful Sunday film was based on an unexpected old D.W. Griffith film about people trying to manage in Germany at the end of World War I. He also sort of remade The Lower Depths, but not from an American model. Most people, however, focus on the well-known American and Italian films that were close Western Action remakes of his samurai films.

There are instances of Japanese film makers borrowing themes, subplots, etc., from American and European movies at times. There are probably also cases where makers of low-grade Japanese gangster films, etc., borrowed liberally from US B- or C-gangster movies, etc.

But can anyone help me out with one or two examples of actual notable Japanese remakes of notable American films that I can cite for comparison in my lecture?

Thank you in advance for any light you can shed.

Michael McCaskey
Georgetown Univ.