Remakes & Reboots: Part 3

On By James CastroIn MoviesLeave a comment

The Effective Updated Remake

Recently Hollywood has been taken to task for the deluge of remakes of old films, modern films, TV series, and foreign films.  Some of them are mystifying; why American Studios need to remake a British film less than 5 years old is beyond me.  Why American studios need to remake foreign language films in English even newer than that is even stranger…  But remaking old ideas is the nature of film and can, in some ways, advance both modern film and shed new light on the original.  Case in point, The Karate Kid.  The 1984 film is a martial arts film as much as Rocky is a boxing film.  In fact, both Kid and Rocky had the same director, John A. Avildson.  Avildson’s Kid is about the outsider, forced to move from his only home to a strange land where social classes and rules of behavior are different from the world he knows.  Karate is the outlet he uses to fit in, and then excel, to win the respect of the society he has been thrust into.  It stresses the most important lesson of martial arts, that it be learned so it never has to be used, and is bolstered by fantastic performances by both a young Ralph Macchio (an under-appreciated performance on his part) and an aging Pat Morita who was nominated for an Academy Award for his Mr. Miyagi and finally allowed him to shed the role of Arnold from Happy Days.  Interestingly, the part was envisioned for Toshiro Mifune, who was believed to be too intense for the role.  It’s a buddy story, as the brash youth befriends the lonely aging master; an action flick, as Macchio’s Daniel fights his way to respect; and a coming-of-age story, as Daniel matures as his Karate lessons continue.  It spawned a few sequels.  The sequels were less successful but did no harm to the message of the original story.

The 2010 remake initially came as terrible news to many of us who grew up with the original.  First, we were given the news that Jackie Chan, an excellent actor who has martial arts ability not possessed by Morita, but also has proven himself to be a fine dramatic actor, would be cast in the “Miyagi” role.  Many of us who are fans of Asian films at first felt fear that the creators might pull a Memoirs of a Geisha on us and try to pass Chan off as Japanese, as Hollywood apparently believes all Asian ethnicities are interchangeable.  Instead, we were hit with another piece of news that the film would take place in China… and that it was essentially being used as a vehicle for Will Smith’s son, Jayden, and produced by Smith’s production company.  It all smelled like a setup; a big budget film designed to promote a star’s kid’s career and make money off of a younger generation without having to create an all-new story.  Even more unusual was the film’s title, which remained The Karate Kid, despite the fact that it took place in China and the titular Kid was clearly going to be learning China’s Kung Fu not Japan’s Karate.  Forums went ablaze with comments of how Hollywood was “raping” the childhoods of countless American 20-30 somethings (though if your childhood was fragile enough to be based around a 1984 movie perhaps it’s time to find something new to hang your hat on anyway…) and it was destroying the legacy of the original (as though the ever diminishing sequels hadn’t already taken some of the shine off that apple).

Then the film came out.  It was clear that the makers of this film not only admired and honored the original, but also its message.  Chan’s Mr. Han was every bit as nuanced as the original Miyagi, and the story of the outsider was just as poignant in the new story as in the 1984 version.  In many ways it is a superior film, the class struggle has a more meaningful ending (even if it is a bit more Hollywood) as Jayden’s character, the young Dre, receives acceptance from Meiying’s family unlike Daniel who did not receive the same from Ali’s.  The martial arts message is just as clear, and the ending in which the Kid receives acceptance is a bit more in-your-face.  It displayed some terrific film making and a very interesting partnership between U.S. and Chinese film industries.  In one scene Han appears to chase flies with chopsticks, playing off of the notion in the original of Miyagi trying to catch a fly with chopsticks.  Han then smacks the fly with a fly swatter, showing that this is the same film, but a different film at the same time.  It doesn’t mock the original scene or claim to be better, it simply announces that this different film.

It fails to achieve the near-perfection of Fistful of Dollars however in some aspects and due to its compromises.  Through no fault of his own, 12-year-old Jayden Smith is not quite the emotionally powerful actor 16-year-old Ralph Macchio was in the original.  Macchio’s character was goofy, fun, playful, helpless, brash, and despairing and Macchio was able to portray all of these remarkably well.  Jayden’s character, Dre, didn’t have nearly the range given to Daniel in the 1984 version, partially due to the writing, and while Jayden was excellent in some areas, he was only serviceable in others, largely due to inexperience.  Still it is easy to see he will probably achieve every bit of the ability his father has at portraying both drama and comedy effectively as he ages.  The most disappointing aspect of the film is Mr. Han’s tragedy is nowhere near as meaningful as Mr. Miyagi’s, and that point, one of the most powerful points in the first film, is misused in the remake.

In the 1984 version Miyagi served honorably in World War II as a soldier in Europe.  While he bravely served his nation, winning a medal of honor (a fact not thrust in the audience’s face through dialogue but found by Daniel during the scene), his pregnant wife was in a Japanese internment camp in the United States where she died during child birth due to the poor medical treatment available in the camp.  Miyagi bravely served his adoptive nation, while the nation’s racist policies essentially killed his wife and child.  On the anniversary of his wife’s (and unborn child’s) death, Miyagi dresses in his army jacket and drinks his pains away.  The scene breaks the stone-wall-like Miyagi down, the man who seems so unbeatable shows he has been beaten by life; it shows why he is lonely, why he at first refuses to allow Daniel into his life, and eventually why he comes to accept him as a surrogate son.  Daniel for his part can only listen to what has happened.  When Miyagi finally passes out, Daniel can only make him comfortable in his bed and cover him with blankets.  He then goes through Miyagi’s World War II materials, which Miyagi has stashed away, medals and commendations, and the photograph of his wife.  The scene remains powerful because of its multilayered messages: Miyagi was a hero then, he stays a hero now; he can save Daniel in a way he couldn’t save his own son; and for Daniel’s part he sees there are some problems that cannot be fixed, talked out, or ever gotten over; all he can do is be there for his friend.

Mr. Han suffered his own tragedy, losing his wife and son in a car accident after an argument.  During the film we see Han working on a beaten up Volkswagen Scirocco in his home.  On the day Dre doesn’t train he comes to see Han who is destroying the car he just restored.  He relates the story of his wife and son, (who was a couple years younger than Dre), when he and his wife argued, and he accidentally wrecked the car in a rainstorm, killing both his wife and son.  While Han is old enough to have experienced some of the more relevant and important moments in recent Chinese history (such as the Great Leap Forward) that would have more poignantly paralleled the original story, I get the impression the Chinese film industry possibly did not want to criticize recent Chinese history as thoroughly as Avildson was willing to criticize recent American history.  We’re left instead with a car wreck, which admittedly is tragic.  The more problematic element is that Dre helps Han by doing one of their training sessions immediately after the story.  I can understand the impetus for this, some audiences may have desired a more active resolution to the subplot, but it is far more effective in the 1984 version.  Not everything can be easily fixed.  Not every problem can be resolved.  Anyone who has had a friend cry on their shoulder knows sometimes the only thing you can do is be there until they recover, and be there the next time.  The newer version took the easy way out on this subplot, which is a major disappointment, but not fatal to the film, which remains, overall, an excellent remake just shy of achieving a Fistful of Dollars level remake.

Gothic Scarf

On By R. PettyIn Projects1 Comment

I’ve knGothic scarfitted many scarves the last two years, so I thought I’d start sharing them.

This was knitted for my best friend’s mom, who wanted dark purple and black. I thought it looked a little gothic, and even though I wasn’t going to add tassels I changed my mind 🙂

I’ve recently learned that this was a purl stitch all the way across, and I used a very bulky black with a very thin purple yarn. It cost less than $10 to make, and it is soft and durable.

Remakes and Reboots: Part 2

On By James CastroIn MoviesLeave a comment

The Homage Remake

George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, though it’s not as widely respected in the mass-public as the films of Leone and Kurosawa, is a historic film in its own right.  Not only is it the film that launched the modern zombie genre of the walking dead who crave human flesh and can be dispatched with a shot to the head, but it blazed social trails by including a non-stereotypical African-American man as not only the lead, but a self-less hero.  It is in many ways as successful a story as Yojimbo and in its own way is as well made.  It too was made in black and white well into the color-film era, and it too launched a series of copy cats, parodies, and sequels.  The 1990 remake of Night of the Living Dead, made by special effects guru and Romero alum Tom Savini was a different kind of remake than Fistful; it was the exact same film with a new cast on updated film.  Savini had no desire to one-up the great Romero.  It was a gorier, little-more-rowdy version of the original and introduced the genre to an entire generation of kids who refused to watch black and white films strictly because they were black and white.  In many ways this 1990 remake renewed a waning interest in zombie horror.

The Premise Remake

When interest in new zombie horror films peaked again after 28 Days Later, a film that broke from Romero’s rules and created its own mythology became another remake of a Romero film that brought the genre back to its roots.  Dawn of the Dead (2004) is a new generation of remakes.  This film, unlike the previous two examples, took merely the premise of the original (people fleeing zombies barricade themselves into a mall) and wrapped an entirely new narrative around it.  In the original Dawn of the Dead (1974), Romero used the zombie genre to comment on social issues once again, this time mass-consumerism, as the people stuck in the mall are initially more concerned with stealing money, goods and enjoying living the good life in their castle-of-inexhaustible-delights.  The 2004 remake by Zack Snyder takes the premise of people fleeing the zombie apocalypse to a mall but says very little about consumerism (there is one line, “I don’t want you sneaking around and stealing shit.”).  Instead, it is more about how personalities respond when sequestered together, moral decisions, and survival.  While Snyder’s remake is not as culturally poignant, it is still a fun movie that maintains Romero’s mood of straight horror with some comedic undertones.  It too, is a successful remake as it takes the premise, builds a new story, and does it well.  It’s flashier, brighter, faster, and slicker than Romero’s film, but its rock video veneer matches its style and lends itself to the story.  It never insults the original or claims to be superior; it more or less ignores it and simply uses its premise to make a new, entertaining movie.

Remakes and Reboots: Part 1

On By James CastroIn Movies, Random Fun2 Comments

There has been a trend in movies recently of remakes and reboots of franchises.  Some of these are venerable franchises that never really ended but whose sequels have reduced either in quality or earning power (such as the Friday 13th series or James Bond films).  Others are old forgotten relics, or classic but dated movies, producers feel need an upgrade or update in order to take an old idea and make it fresh, or to squeeze a little more cash without having to contract new stories from new writers and new creators.  The idea of the remake or films from books, plays, or other media is as old as film itself.  Recently, however there has been a rash of remakes and reboots of films, some good, some great, some better than the originals; some bad, some worse, some insults to already shaky reputations of cult classic films.

The Remake

For the purposes of this discussion a remake will be any film that takes the story of an original film, its characters, and its basic plot development and creates a newer version.  Sometimes with new plot twists, new dynamics, and almost always new actors, recent films have shown studios’ willingness to remake very old films as well as rather recent ones with sometimes shocking regularity.  The difference between a remake and a reboot can get muddied in modern cinema, but for our purposes we will try and stick to direct remakes in this section and analyze more obvious reboots in the next.

The Perfect Remake

There are effective ways to do a remake and still make a terrific film, sometimes building on the ideas of the original film, honoring it, or playing off of it.  A remake should never insult the original, demean it, or claim itself in any of its scenes or actions to be superior to it.  It should remember its place; it is not an original idea and owes its very existence to a film that preceded it.  One of the finest remakes in cinema history launched two of the most influential personalities in cinema: Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood.  Leone’s spaghetti western version of Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo, A Fistful of Dollars, created the template for the perfect direct remake.  It took the story from the original, took most of the major characters, the plot, the tone, and the message, and created a whole new film for a whole new audience.  Though Yojimbo would find itself made and remade again in TV and in film (such as the MUCH less successful Bruce Willis remake Last Man Standing), only Fistful seemed to get it right.  Kurosawa’s original was a violent farce, mocking and revering the western genre as a whole.  It was darkly funny and delightfully cynical, containing broad caricatures of typical western stereotypes at the same time destroying the idea of the white-hat hero and single-handily creating the anti-hero for popular culture.  Leone’s version (made without the permission of Kurosawa but using the idea and much of the script whole cloth) embodies many of the same principles.  Eastwood is perfect as the laconic western gunslinger every bit as much as Toshiro Mifune was perfect as the jaded nameless samurai sword master.  Wild, operatic action takes place in both, the anti-hero’s only weakness is displayed when he helps others (the message seemingly conveyed: never help others…), and a climax between evil and not-so-evil leaves the audience satisfied with the conclusion.  Comparing the remakes, Fistful contained the same wry wit, delivered in Eastwood’s characteristic monotone.  Eastwood, like Mifune, was the ultimate good-bad-guy (or bad-good-guy, depending on one’s perspective); largely free of morality and selflessness, he is out to destroy the system as a whole by having it destroy itself rather than through direct action of his own.  His mind and wit are as deadly as his gun and he revels in watching the fools around him flounder like puppets on strings.  It honors the original’s feel and mood; it doesn’t simply take the premise and put it in a new location.  Last Man Standing plays it more straight.  It is hardly amusing, the lead character has none of the dark humor and plays more like an avenging angel of death than a wry, clever puppet master using his craftiness over his propensity for violence.  This change shows a trend in remakes as they get further and further from the original, or in more contemporary versions: simplification.  The characters in Yojimbo are complex and multifaceted.  Even when they are broad to the point of silliness, few of the characters are ever just one thing; the bold anti-hero who cares little for the world…still risks his entire plot to save a woman and return her to her family.  The wealthy sake brewer who runs one of the ruthless gangs is madly in love with the woman who was freed.  One of the characters idiotic younger brother is not only a vicious fighter but also has a fear of ghosts.  Little character pieces that make, even these cartoonish portrayals, alive and memorable.  The characters in Fistful of Dollars are just as memorable, as is the climax sequence displaying the lead character’s cleverness rather than just his ability to dispense violence.  Both were successful at telling the same story with the same mood and the remake honored the original by copying its mood, style, and characters.

Perhaps the Leone classic is an unfair remake to begin with as it is in many ways the perfect remake.  It had skilled performers and crews who knew exactly what would transfer over into the change in scenery and what wouldn’t, and it created its own mythology and branching stories.  In fact, it was so successful at retelling Kurosawa’s original film it spawned two sequels entirely unrelated to the source film, the second of which is widely considered to be the best, For a Few Dollars More and the legendary The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Clint Eastwood would go on to play the clever anti-hero character pioneered by Mifune not only in Man With No Name films of Leone, but also in other films like The Outlaw Josey Wales, High Plains Drifter, and even the farcical Two Mules for Sister Sara.  Few remakes can claim such a pedigree, and it shows the genius of not only the filmmakers involved in the remake, but the excellence of the source film’s creators and storytelling.