If you follow movies even a little bit, you know that these days, pretty much every horror movie that does not have "Saw" in the title is a remake of an Asian horror movie. I haven't seen many of these--just The Ring, which, admittedly, scared the bejesus out of me--but it's clear that if you want financing for a horror movie, all you have to do is say you are remaking a successful Asian horror movie.
Aside about my recent adventures in this area: I just watched the original Chinese version of The Eye, which I really liked--some pretty creepy set pieces, and a really great twist about two-thirds of the way through. But, yeah, the idea--woman has cornea transplant and can suddenly see the dead, like the similarly gifted suicide whose corneas she got--is an old retread dating back at least as far as 1924's Hands of Orlac (it was obviously not corneas in that one, but still, the idea that transplanted body parts can mess you up is the same). So everybody's stealing from somebody, which I suppose is important to remember.
Here's the trailer for the original Chinese version of The Eye:
and here's the trailer for the remake, which you can pretty much tell sucks just from the trailer:
Okay, so how does this relate to me and my career?
Well, one of the biggest YA books of the year is Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games. I haven't read this, but it's selling a lot, it's making a lot of year-end best lists, many of the librarians I hang with online are really into it, (yeah, I hang with librarians online. You know how I feel about librarians.) and, oh yeah, it's a complete ripoff of a Japanese book from 1999.
Here's the Amazon description of The Hunger Games: Katniss is a 16-year-old girl living with her mother and younger sister
in the poorest district of Panem, the remains of what used be the
United States. Long ago the districts waged war on the Capitol and were
defeated. As part of the surrender terms, each district agreed to send
one boy and one girl to appear in an annual televised event called,
"The Hunger Games." The terrain, rules, and level of audience
participation may change but one thing is constant: kill or be killed.
When Kat's sister is chosen by lottery, Kat steps up to go in her
place.
And here's the Amazon description of Koushun Takami's Battle Royale (which I have read):Battle Royale, a high-octane thriller about senseless youth violence, is one of Japan's best-selling - and most controversial - novels. As part of a ruthless program by the totalitarian government, ninth-grade students are taken to a small isolated island with a map, food, and various weapons. Forced to wear special collars that explode when they break a rule, they must fight each other for three days until only one "winner" remains. The elimination contest becomes the ultimate in must-see reality television. A Japanese pulp classic available in English for the first time, Battle Royale is a potent allegory of what it means to be young and survive in today's dog-eat-dog world. The first novel by small-town journalist Koushun Takami, it went on to become an even more notorious film by 70-year-old gangster director Kinji Fukusaku.
Notice any similarities? I sure as hell do!
So what's the lesson here? I guess, for me, I have to start studying the Japanese bestseller lists. Maybe I should write a book for cell phones....
