"Inspired by..."

[Eirik]

"Inspired by" - Hollywoodese for "thinking up things is hard."

I rented Ringu on the recommendation of a couple of you and liked it very much.  I liked The Ring and figured I'd check out the movie that "inspired" it.  I was surprised to see that the Ring was, for the most part, a shot-for-freaking-shot remake!

Kudos to the Japanese people who wrote, directed, and starred in that movie!  They made a damn scarey horror flick in my opinion.  Shame on the Americans who stole their work and gave them the scant credit of "inspired by."  

Sixteen major Hollywood releases last summer were either sequels or based on comic books.  The Ring - and, I have learned, much of Tarantino's work - was stolen from East Asian film makers.  Red Dragon was basically a shot-for-shot remake of 1986's Manhunter.  How many movies of the past 15 years have been retreads of Die Hard?  Mel Gibson basically ripped off his own Braveheart when he made the Patriot and now Tom Cruise rips it off again with Samurai.  Is Hollywood completely written out or what?

I guess it's nothing new.  How many Jaws and Rocky remakes did we have to endure during the 1980s?  Still, I feel bad for the folks who made Ringu - I hoped the Hollywood studio at least paid them for their story and they way they presented it.

[fireal]

The Hollywood Ring was a remake and was actualy all that bad considering it was from Hollywood. As far as I can tell Kill Bill is Tarantino homage to the classic kung fu movies instead of ripping them off just like his other films have all been homages to one movie type or another.

However Red Dragon is not a remake of Manhunter. Red Dragon is a pretty much perfect movie version of the book. Manhunter was loosely based on that book. Now I really enjoyed Manhunter but it really didn't fit into the trilogy like Red Dragon.

[Eirik]

Regarding Tarantino, I've been told that Reservoir Dogs was taken directly from a Hong Kong gangster movie, plot and all.  I haven't seen this other movie to confirm this and I forget the title.  Maybe someone else knows if this is true?

Also, I didn't see too many differences between Red Dragon and Manhunter.  Other than a couple of extra Lectar scenes, and a slight difference in the order they showed some stuff, it was the exact same movie but with bigger name stars.

[Mr_Vindictive]

Eirik-You are correct about Reservoir Dogs.  It was EXTREMELY inspired by "Long hu feng yun".  Movie is about a cop (Chow Yun-Fat) who joins a group of thieves about to rob a jewelry store.  Sounds pretty familiar (Wink).

As for Kill Bill, I felt that film to be a homage more than a ripoff.

The American Ring is pretty much a copy of the original, but it is a remake after all.  But, they did add in the whole thing about the island and the horses and all.

[Eirik]

"The American Ring is pretty much a copy of the original, but it is a remake after all. But, they did add in the whole thing about the island and the horses and all."

If you're going to do a remake, call it a remake.  All I remember hearing and reading was how The Ring was "inspired by" some Japanese movie.  Watching that girl crawl out of the TV in Ringu was like watching a replay of the American version.

And they did not add the part about the island, the island was in Ringu.  But where Ringu had the old man own a fish hatchery, the Ring changed it to a horse farm.  They threw in some extra filler about the girl (like showing where she had been kept by the old man) which was neat, but everything scarey about the Ring was taken directly (sometimes frame by frame) from Ringu.

[Mr_Vindictive]

Whoops.

You are correct Eirik.  Too early for my memory to be working.  :o)

I also believe that they didn't give the original Ringu as much credit as it deserved.  I wonder how many teens out there loved the American version and don't know that it was based on another film.  

I did enjoy the remake however, just not as much as the original.  Ring 2 is slated to be released this year, although no filming has been done yet.

It would also be quite interesting to see an American version of Ringu 0, the third Ringu film which focuses around the life of the girl and her younger years.

But, as you are talking about how the American version was "inspired by", consider the following:

Ringu was inspired by the book.  

So the American Ring is actually "Inspired by a film, Inspired by a book".

The Japanese are prone to the whole not giving credit thing as well.  Although Ringu was released in 1998, the sequel which is based on the books sequel which was called Rasen was also released in 98.

It bombed and the people in "Japanese Hollywood" decided to make their own damn sequel.  The result is Ringu 2.  Not based on the book sequel, but on the characters of the original.

So, don't be so harsh on the American version, cause from what I remember from last watching Ringu (a while ago, I need to watch it again) it didn't give any credit to the book.

Just My Two Cents.

[Eirik]

"So, don't be so harsh on the American version, cause from what I remember from last watching Ringu (a while ago, I need to watch it again) it didn't give any credit to the book."

Fair points.  For the record, Ringu did say "based on the book Ringu by so-and-so" in it's opening credits.  Sequels, huh?  That could be cool.

[The Burgomaster]

I enjoy movies that say things like:

"Inspired by true events.  However, names, locations, and circumstances have been changed, and certain characters and time periods have been compressed for dramatic purposes."

In other words, the movie isn't anything like what really happened.

[Susan]

Originality is dead. Btw nothing is worse than the phrase "inspired by a true story" (which is worse than "Based")

That means they took a real story and changed so much crap that it's not anything like the original story, but it's a way to make audiences think they're seeing something that really happened. It's nothing new, hollywood used to remake movies even back in the 30's. It's just that after 100 years of cinema, the saame story can only be recycled so many times

[jmc]

My favorite bs disclaimer is from CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST.

 "For the sake of authenticity, some sequences have been retained in their entirety."  

???

I haven't seen RED DRAGON but think it's probably better than MANHUNTER, which was very dated and didn't seem to have the spirit of the book [for one thing, they changed the ending to make it seem more like the ending of a TV cop show.]

[JohnL]

>Red Dragon was basically a shot-for-shot remake of 1986's Manhunter.

I haven't seen Red Dragon. Does it have the flaming wheelchair scene?

[wickednick]

I havn't seen Ringu yet, its at Bluckbuster but only in VHS and subtitled.So im waiting to see if it ever comes out on dvd and is dubbed.I have seen the Ring though and I hated it.The movie was lame in my opinion and not very scary at all.
Ive seen both Manhunter and Red Dragon and have found the two movies to be very different.Red Dragon keeps much more to the story and goes into greater detail between the serial killer and Hanibals relationship.I found Red Dragon to be more suspensful and intreguing than Manhunter was.Manhunter I found to be very boring.It just kinda lulled along taking its time with the story but never really giving us to much to get into it.

[Cullen]

wyckednick wrote:

> I havn't seen Ringu yet, its at Bluckbuster but only in VHS and
> subtitled.

I wouldn't bother waiting.  If you didn't like The Ring, you'll probably feel the same about Ringu.  There isn't a lot of difference between the two.

Me?  I liked 'em both equally.

[Eirik]

Yes JohnL, they had the flaming wheelchair, the tiger petting, the mirrors in the eyes, the detective climbing the tree...  How wyckednick sees some kind of major difference between the two movies is beyond me.

[FearlessFreep]

How wyckednick sees some kind of major difference between the two movies is beyond me.

The events may be the same but I think wyckednick's point is that Red Dragon has a different atmosphere amd more backstory.

Either way, I'm not sure why it's a big deal..  Red Dragon was based on the same books as Manhunter but meant to be part of  the trilogy including Silence Of the Lambs (and one other which I don't remember right now) based onthe books.  So the fact that years ago someone had made a movie called Manhunter also basde on the same book doesn't mean Red Dragon is just a remake or ripoff or whatever of Manhunter