Glory ,'Potential'
A place to talk about movies--old and new, good and bad, high art and high cheese. It's the place to place your kittens on the award winners, gossip about upcoming fims and discuss DVD releases and extras. Spoiler policy: White font all plot-related discussion until a movie's been in wide release two weeks, and keep the major HSQ in white font until two weeks after the video/DVD release.
Remaking a Japanese movie as an American movie may be a bad idea, but it doesn't seem like the same kind of whitewashing.
At the time they were made, I doubt it was brought up, but I do have to wonder if "A Fist Full of Dollars" and "The Magnificent Seven" were made today, if they would trigger the same kind of discussion that the Akira remake has.
Yeah, I'm glad, at least, that they're moving the setting since they're casting as they are.
That being said - I wonder what a Japanese movie of it would look like.
What about The Departed/Infernal Affairs? I think it's bacause even so many Americans think Akira is a masterpiece, no?
Didn't as many think Infernal Affairs is a masterpiece? Maybe it's because you're crossing media lines? So they want one medium to be true to the previous? Whereas it would be dumb for an American to make a Japanese adaptation of a Japanese movie.
I actually have no idea, really.
Oh! Saw Harold and Kumar 3. Admittedly, I missed 2, and, duh, I just worked out which one is Daneel Ackles. I am the worst Supernatural fan EVER. It was so way beyond wrong, and really stupid, which was what I needed to see, and quite funny. The 3D is all pretty obvious--there's not a subtle thing about the movie, but that's not why you go see Harold or Kumar, is it?
Jordan Hinson is in this, and I am totally freaked out at the idea of Colin's TV daughter in a stoner comedy. Then again, if I knew the triplets that played...Ava? I'd be even more traumatised.
Infernal Affairs is totally a better movie.
You take a movie, you translate it into your culture, and you retell it. So, yeah, it turns out to have the racial demographics of your culture.
What are the characters' names? What will their backstory be?
They haven't announced their names. But they will be from New York. That's all we know so far. Helena Bonham Carter has also been cast.
If their names and backgrounds are not supposed to be Japanese, then I guess I'm okay with the casting not being Japanese. Although I'm not sure what would make it Akira if it's not that character set. I was pretty upset with the original announcement, and I'm not yet placated by the move to New York.
I guess just, overall, you have the opportunity to have a major motion picture with a Japanese cast and you remove it entirely from its original cultural trappings, then you take away a rare opportunity for Japanese actors to perform for a mainstream audience. Again, if it were possible for Japanese actors to play roles perceived as white in the normal process, then I wouldn't have such an issue with it. I'm Caucasian (or any other race), you know.