Top 10 World Cinema Remakes

Having recently looked at the French and other European films that have inspired English-language remakes, Cinema Paradiso turns its attention to pictures from the rest of the world to mark the release on high-quality DVD and Blu-ray of Living.

Remakes are as old as cinema itself. In the early days of motion pictures, distance prevented audiences in America from seeing the films making box-office tills ring in France, Germany, or Italy. As film-makers started stamping prints with their company logo to stop piracy, producers decided to make their own versions of proven hits in order to dodge copyright rules that were difficult to enforce thousands of miles away.

With the coming of sound, language proved the barrier to showing acclaimed overseas outings. So, with audiences being resistant to reading subtitles (after having had no complaint about deciphering intertitles during the silent era), the studios decided it made more sense to buy the rights to foreign hits and remake them in the American idiom for both domestic consumption and export. In some cases, the Hollywood version bested the source in its country of origin. But, even though money always talked louder than artistry in such matters, the process nevertheless generated a number of genuine classics that remain popular to this day.

The Imitation Game

Films are expensive to make and audiences are hard to please. Cognisant of these facts, the Hollywood studios seek to protect their investments by removing as many imponderables as possible. The star system was developed to ensure that fans would buy tickets to see their favourite pin-up's latest picture, while genres were developed to pander to the tastes of specific groups of moviegoers. Countless films were adapted from so-called pre-sold properties like plays, books, biographies, or magazine articles that had already made their mark on the public imagination.

Another way of reducing box-office risk was by following up hits with sequels that could spawn franchises. Similarly, remakes sought to lure back viewers who had enjoyed the original hit and were curious to see how the story had been changed. As comparatively few foreign films reached cinemas outside America's biggest cities, the studios also acquired the rights to pictures that had been successful overseas and tailored them to appeal to US patrons.

Even during Hollywood's heyday, some critics accused producers who reworked foreign features of having run out of ideas. Today, however, the concept of imitation being a sincere form of flattery has been replaced by charges of cultural appropriation or cultural imperialism, as American multinationals strive to eliminate competition by suppressing imports and monopolising global screen space with retools that the majority of punters won't know or care were based on something that originated elsewhere.

Although front offices like the idea of a proven formula, there is no guarantee that a storyline that works in one context will do so in another. Every now and then, a remake will top its source. But numerous classics have been lost in translation. Sometimes, this is down to the screenplay, the direction, or the (mis) casting of the stars. Frequently, however, it's simply that the narrative fails to cross the cultural divide. Even rehiring the original film-maker cannot ensure a repeat performance, as Dutchman George Sluizer demonstrated with The Vanishing ( 1988 & 1993 ) and Austrian auteur Michael Haneke did with Funny Games ( 1997 & 2007).

It works both ways, of course, as Hollywood success stories sometimes land with a resounding thud when they are remade elsewhere. Sidney Lumet's 12 Angry Men (1957) was given a disturbing pro-Putin slant in Oscar-winning director Nikita Mikhalkov's 12 (2007), while Franklin J. Schaffner's Planet of the Apes (1968) was reshaped for consumption in Japan (1974) and Brazil (1976). A rare example of a remake improving on the original came when James Toback's Fingers (1978) was given a Gallic makeover by Jacques Audiard, with critics unanimously agreeing The Beat That My Heart Skipped (2005) was the superior film.

Imparting a Latin Twist

Although Hollywood has picked up the odd film from Spain, the majority of Spanish remakes originate from Latin America. Among those hailing from the old country is Alejandro Amenábar's Open Your Eyes (1997), which made such an impression on Cameron Crowe that he not only reworked its dark study of identity, cryonics, and dreams as Vanilla Sky (2001), but also asked Penélope Cruz to reprise her role opposite Tom Cruise. Paul McCartney received an Oscar nomination for composing the title track.

The horror was more visceral in Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza's [•REC] (2007), a found footage account of the effects of a mutating rabies strain that was reworked by John Erick Dowdle as Quarantine (2008), which switched the setting from Barcelona to Los Angeles. The US version did modest business, but the Catalan original spawned three sequels: Balagueró and Plaza's [•REC]² (2009); Plaza's [•REC]³: Génesis (2012) ; and Balagueró's [•REC]4: Apocalypse (2014) - all of which are available to rent from Cinema Paradiso on high-quality DVD and Blu-ray.

Speaking of directorial double acts, Bobby Farrelly is best known for his collaborations with his older brother, Peter. However, he made his solo directorial with Champions (2023), a basketball comedy starring Woody Harrelson as a temperamental G-League coach that reshaped Javier Fesser's Campeones (2018). This isn't Harrelson's first tilt at some hoop dreams, of course, as he teamed with Wesley Snipes for Ron Shelton's streetball classic, White Men Can't Jump (1992).

Having shared an iconic moment over a couple of cigarettes in Irving Rapper's Now, Voyager (1942), Paul Henreid and Bette Davis reunited as director and star of Dead Ringer (1964), a story about a murderous twin that had afforded Dolores Del Rio a deliciously dark dual role in Roberto Gavaldón's Mexican thriller, La Otra (1946). Another horror gem to cross the border is Jorge Michel Grau's Somos lo que hay (2010), which saw Daniel Giménez Cacho reprise his role as the coroner from Guillermo Del Toro's Cronos (1993). Despite tweaking the plot, Jim Mickle's We Are What We Are (2013) still centres on the problems of feeding a family of cannibals without attracting suspicion.

Stephanie Sigman falls foul of a drug cartel when she competes in a beauty contest in Gerardo Naranjo's unflinching thriller, Miss Bala (2011). Gina Rodriguez plays an American make-up artist who shares the same fate after helping her Mexican friend enter a pageant in Catherine Hardwick's remake, Miss Bala (2019), which received a markedly less positive reception.

Despite it being considered one of the best Argentine comedies of all time, few will have seen Francisco Mugica's Los Martes, orquídeas (1941). But they'll be much more familiar with William A. Seiter's Hollywood musical remake, You Were Never Lovelier (1942), which reunited Fred Astaire and Rita Hayworth after they had previously co-starred in Sidney Lanfield's You'll Never Get Rich (1941). This period was renowned for the 'Good Neighbour' movies that Hollywood produced to dissuade South American countries from allying with the Nazis. Among those available from Cinema Paradiso are the Irving Cummings duo of Down Argentine Way (1940) and That Night in Rio (1941), which both feature 'Brazilian bombshell' Carmen Miranda.

Over half a century passed before Argentinian films started regularly to resurface in Hollywood. One of the earliest was Fabián Bielinsky's Nine Queens (2000), a compelling heist thriller than brought Ricardo Darín to a wider audience. When Gregory Jacobs refitted the story as Criminal (2004), however, the part of the small-time crook with a talent for con tricks went to John C. Reilly. Darín also starred in Juan José Campanella's Oscar winner, The Secret in Their Eyes (2009) as a judiciary agent investigating a case of rape and murder under the 1970s junta. Billy Ray's Secret in Their Eyes (2015) shifted the action to post-9/11 Los Angeles and cast Chiwetel Ejiofor as the investigator helping Assistant District Attorney Nicole Kidman solve a similar crime.

Shirley MacLaine and Christopher Plummer made delightful partners in Michael Radford's Elsa & Fred (2014), which set the late-life romance in New Orleans after Marcos Carnevale's Spanish-Argentinian co-production, Elsa y Fred (2005), had centred on Madrid. Uruguayan star China Zorrilla had played the truthfully challenged Elsa and her homeland provided the idea for Chris Kentis's Silent House (2011), a creepy rural chiller starring Elizabeth Olsen that was preceded by Gustavo Hernández's The Silent House (2010).

The countryside proves no more inviting in Patricio Valladores's Hidden in the Woods (2014), a remake of his own Chilean original, En las afueras de la ciudad (2012), which tells of the abused daughters of a drug dealer who are menaced by the uncle searching for his jailed sibling's secreted stash. And there's more directorial doubling up, as Sebastián Lelio coaxes exceptional performances out of Paulina Garcia (who won Best Actress at the Berlin Film Festival) and the ever-excellent Julianne Moore, as the free-spirited divorcées discovering the delights and drawbacks of second-chance love in Gloria (2013) and Gloria Bell (2018).

Israeli Reels

Chronicling the travails of three Tel Aviv teenagers growing up in the 1950s, Boaz Davidson's Lemon Popsicle (1978) remains one of the most successful films in Israeli screen history. His US remake, The Last American Virgin (1982), may not be on disc. But Cinema Paradiso users can still hit the sequel trails with Lemon Popsicle 2: Going Steady (1979), Lemon Popsicle 3: Hot Bubblegum (1981), Lemon Popsicle 4: Private Popsicle (1983), Lemon Popsicle 5: Baby Love (1984), Lemon Popsicle 6: Up Your Anchor (1986), and Lemon Popsicle 7: Young Love (1987).

If you still need something to chuckle at, why not try Phil Alden Robinson's The Angriest Man in Brooklyn (2014), which reworked Assi Dayan's The 92 Minutes of Mr Baum (1997). The story of a man losing the plot after being told he has 90 minutes to live has its poignant moments, however, as it was the last Robin Williams vehicle to be released during his lifetime. Putting the world to rights is also the theme of John Madden's The Debt (2010), a remake of Assaf Bernstein's Ha-chov (2007) that stars Helen Mirren and Jessica Chastain as Rachel Singer in the present day and in the 1960s, when she had been a Mossad agent on the trail of 'The Surgeon of Birkenau'.

Sarrit Larry gives such a fine performance in Nadav Lapid's The Kindergarten Teacher (2014) that it's a shame the film has not been released on disc in the UK. However, Cinema Paradiso users can admire Maggie Gyllenhaal's display in Sara Colangelo's The Kindergarten Teacher (2018), as a disaffected New York educator who becomes obsessed with poetry prodigy Parker Sevak.

Lands of the Rising Remake

As regular readers will know from Cinema Paradiso's Instant Expert's Guide to Kenji Mizoguchi and Instant Expert's Guide to Yasujiro Ozu, Japan was producing films of a high calibre long before the rest of the world caught up during the postwar boom in international film festivals. The picture that opened the doors was Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon (1950), which won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1951 and was presented with an Academy Honorary Award at the Oscars the following year.

When Martin Ritt reworked the screenplay based on two short stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, he cast Paul Newman in the bandit role originally taken by Toshiro Mifune. Claire Bloom, Laurence Harvey, and Edward G. Robinson also star in The Outrage (1964), which is well worth seeking out, as it's been rather overlooked. The same is true of Hirocki Yoshida's remake, Iron Maze (1991), which was executive produced by Oliver Stone and features Jeff Fahey, Bridget Fonda, J.T. Walsh, and Hiroaki Murakami in the conflicting flashbacks.

Another Kurosawa classic to have been remade in Hollywood is Seven Samurai (1954), which added a couple of Oscar nominations for its costumes and art direction to the Silver Lion that the director had won at Venice. John Sturges and Antoine Fuqua called the shots on the 1960 and 2016 versions of The Magnificent Seven, which each boasted a notable ensemble cast. But don't overlook Jimmy T. Murakami's Battle Beyond the Stars (1980), which took the story into outer space. It was produced by Roger Corman, who hired John Sayles to write the screenplay and James Cameron to devise the special effects.

Kurowsawa drew on another Ryunosuke Akutagawa story for Yojimbo (1961), the wandering samurai classic that would spawn a sequel, Sanjuro (1962), which also starred the peerless Toshiro Mifune. Sergio Leone saw the merits in the story and rejigged it to suit the Spaghetti Western style employed on A Fistful of Dollars (1964), which made a major movie star of Clint Eastwood, who was then best known for playing Rowdy Yates in TV's Rawhide (1959-65). He would go on to headline For a Few Dollars More (1965) and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). But it was Yojimbo that provided the inspiration for John C. Broderick's The Warrior and the Sorceress (1984), which starred David Carradine of Kung Fu (1972-74) fame, and Walter Hill's Last Man Standing (1996), which took the action to Prohibition Texas as a vehicle for Bruce Willis, who receives sterling support from Christopher Walken and Bruce Dern.

The most recent Kurosawa to be remade is Ikiru (1952), an adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilyich that starred Takashi Shimura as the dying civil servant hoping to leave a legacy. Bill Nighy took the role in Oliver Hermanus's Living (2022) and earned himself an Oscar nomination for Best Actor to go alongside Kazuo Ishigura's recognition for Best Adapted Screenplay.

No Japanese film has spawned more spin-offs than Ishiro Honda's Gojira (1954), which has been named cinema's longest-running franchise by the Guinness Book of Records (even though the 1943 serials, Superman and Batman, precede the suitmation classic by several years). The companion pieces to this pacifist allegory about a rampaging monster kept the Toho Studio busy for decades. However, Hollywood lent a helping hand with Roland Emmerich's Godzilla (1996) and Gareth Edwards's Godzilla (2014), which was the 30th title in the series and gave rise to Michael Dougherty's sequel, Godzilla: King of Monsters (2019).

Another Japanese genre to have found a niche in Hollywood is J Horror. Hideo Nakata was one of the first to venture into the form with Don't Look Up (1996), a self-reflexive tale about a haunted film studio that was remade in the United States by Hong Konger Fruit Chan, whose Don't Look Up (2009) took the story to Transylvania. Nakata brought a Koji Suzuki novel about a cursed voice tape to the screen as Ringu, which was released at the same time as its sequel, Joji Iida's Spiral (both 1998). Nakata released his own follow up, Ring 2 (1999), which prompted Norio Tsuruta's prequel, Ring 0: Birthday (2000), and Nakata's Sadako (2019). As if this wasn't enough to be getting on with, Kim Dong-bin directed the South Korean remake, The Ring Virus (1999), while Naomi Watts headlined Gore Verbinski's Hollywood version, The Ring (2002). Becoming one of the most successful horror remakes of all time, this spawned its own sequels, The Ring Two (2005) and Rings (2017), which were respectively directed by Hideo Nakata and F. Javier Gutiérrez.

A computer virus causes all the trouble in Kiyoshi Kurosawa's deeply unsettling Pulse (2001), which reared its head Stateside when Kristen Bell headlined Jim Sonzero's Pulse (2006). Takashi Shimizu scored another supernatural hit with Ju-On: The Grudge (2002), a haunted attic chiller that earned the director the right to handle the 2004 Hollywood remake, The Grudge, and its sequel, The Grudge 2 (2006), which respectively starred Sarah Michelle Geller and Amber Tamblyn. The sole survivor of the second film, Matthew Knight, made it into Toby Wilkins's The Grudge 3 (2009). But the trail went cold until Nicolas Pesce rebooted the series with The Grudge (2020), which was billed as a sidequel to its immediate predecessors.

Nakata kept the shivers coming in Dark Water (2002), a take on a Koji Suzuki short story that subjected a mother and daughter to the effects of a leaking water tank. Brazilian Walter Salles took charge of the US version, Dark Water (2005), which starred Jennifer Connelly. The prolific Takashi Miike got into the act with One Missed Call (2003), which turns on a phone message from the future. Two sequels followed, Renpei Tsukamoto's One Missed Call 2 (2005) and Manabu Asou's One Missed Call: Final (2006), which are both available from Cinema Paradiso. Hollywood got round to a remake in 2008, when Eric Valette directed Shannyn Sossaman and Edward Burns in One Missed Call. This was mullered by the press, although, in our eyes, that makes it more of a must see.

A manga series by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata was behind Shusuke Kaneko's Death Note, which starred Tatsuya Fujiwara as Tokyo student Light Yagami, who has an audacious plan to eradicate crime. He returned in Death Note 2: The Last Name (both 2006). Kaneko oversaw the anime series, Death Note (2006-07), before Tetsuro Araki took over for Death Note: Relight (2006-08). Hideo Nakata sought to reboot the franchise with Death Note: I Change the World (2008), but it took until 2017 for Adam Wingard to make the American version, Death Note (2017), although it's not currently available from Cinema Paradiso.

Anime is such a distinctively Japanese form that Hollywood has largely opted to steer clear when it comes to remakes. A couple of live-action exceptions are Robert Rodriguez's James Cameron-produced cyberpunk offering, Alita: Battle Angel (2019), which draws on Hiroshi Fukutomi's Battle Angel (1993), and Rupert Sanders's Ghost in the Shell (2017). Starring Scarlett Johansson as a cyborg supersoldier curious about her past, this was defended against accusations of racism by Mamoru Oshii, who had directed the original anime classic, Ghost in the Shell (1995).

Action is the name of the game in Frank Marshall's Eight Below (2006), a remake of Koreyoshi Kurahara's Antarctica (1983) that centres on the risks that guide Paul Walker takes to save his eight courageous sled dogs. Waiting obediently is also the theme of another fact-based story, Seijiro Koyama's Hachiko Monogatari (1987), which was remade by Lasse Hallström as Hachi: A Dog's Tale (2009) and centres on the foundling Akita dog who becomes attached to academic Richard Gere. What a tear-jerking double bill this would make with Don Chaffey's Greyfriars Bobby (1961) or John Henderson's remake, The Adventures of Greyfriars Bobby (2005).

The open sea proves perilous in Andrew Davis's The Guardian (2006), a loose reworking of Eiichiro Hasumi's Umizaru (2004) that pits coastguard instructor Kevin Costner against cocky trainee swimmer Ashton Kutcher. Bella Thorne can't even venture outside because of a rare skin condition in Scott Speer's Midnight Sun (2018), which is based on Norihiro Koizum's romantic drama, A Song to the Sun (2006). Love is also in the air in Peter Chelsom's Shall We Dance? (2004), which pairs Richard Gere and Jennifer Lopez as the businessman and ballroom dance instructor who were played by Koji Yakusho and Tamiyo Kusakari in Masayuki Suo's exquisite original, Shall We Dance? (1996).

You'll also need the hankies at the ready for Alejandro Agresti's The Lake House (2006), a remake of Lee Hyun-seung's South Korean classic, Il Mare (2000), which reunited Speed (1994) stars Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves as a doctor and an architect who find a magical way of communicating across a glitch in time. A novel by Kim Ho-sik reached the screen as Kwak Jae-yong's My Sassy Girl in 2001. Seven years later Elisha Cuthbert and Jesse Bradford came together in Yann Samuel's My Sassy Girl (2008), which relates the true story of how the lives of a student and a party girl change forever following an incident at a subway station.

We turn to K Horror for Kim Sung-ho's Into the Mirror (2003), which follows a security guard investigating a series of mysterious department store deaths. Kiefer Sutherland takes over from Yoo Ji-tae in Alexandre Aja's Mirrors (2008), which takes elements from the original in fashioning its own story. Revisiting a much-adapted folk tale, Kim Jee-woon's A Tale of Two Sisters (2003) is the highest-grossing horror in Korean screen history and Cinema Paradiso couldn't recommend this scary stepmother story highly enough. Abetted by Elizabeth Banks and Emily Browning and Arielle Kebbel, the Guard Brothers made a decent stab at remaking it as The Uninvited (2009). Maybe you should order both before making up your minds.

It's brothers Lee Byung-hun and Lee Eol who start behaving oddly in Park Young-hoon's disarming thriller, Addicted (2002), which resurfaced in Hollywood as Joel Bergval and Simon Sandquist's Possession (2009), which sees Sarah Michelle Geller trying to distinguish between siblings Lee Pace and Michael Landes after they emerge from their respective comas. The reboot lacks the intensity of the original. But the difficulty of remaking a hit film is laid bare by a comparison of Spike Lee's Oldboy (2013) and Park Chan-wook's Oldboy (2003). Let's just say that the central part of a trilogy that also contains Sympathy For Mr Vengeance (2002) and Lady Vengeance (2005) is in a different league. Which means you need to see them both, right?

While very few Chinese films have found berths in Hollywood, the odd title from Taiwan and Hong Kong has found favour. Nominated for an Oscar, a BAFTA, and a Golden Globe, Ang Lee's Mandarin delight, Eat Drink Man Woman (1994), echoes around Maria Ripoll's Tortilla Soup (2001), which transfers the story of a proud chef father from Taipei to Los Angeles and spices things up with a cameo by Raquel Welch.

Andrew Lau and Alan Mak had a global hit with Infernal Affairs (2002), in which Lau plays a triad plant in the Hong Kong police force, while Tony Leung is an undercover cop in the gang of bigwig Eric Tsang. Such was the gritty thriller's success that the co-directors released Infernal Affairs II as a prequel and Infernal Affairs III (both 2003) as a sequel. Moreover, Martin Scorsese picked up the rights and ended his long quest for the Academy Award for Best Director with The Departed (2006), which also landed Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay in casting Jack Nicholson as the Boston crime boss smuggling Matt Damon into the Massachusetts State Police and mistakenly putting his faith in undercover trooper Leonardo DiCaprio.

Danny Pang co-edited the Infernal Affairs trilogy between directorial assignments with his twin brother, Oxide. Basing themselves in Thailand, they brought such combustible energy to Bangkok Dangerous (1999) that Nicolas Cage invited them to direct him as a taciturn hitman in the Hollywood remake, Bangkok Dangerous (2008). They made a bigger impact with The Eye (2002), a chiller in which Angelica Lee receives the dubious benefits of a cornea transplant. Yet, despite helming the sequels, The Eye 2 (2004) and The Eye Infinity (2005), David Moreau and Xavier Palud were entrusted with the Hollywood remake, The Eye (2008), which stars Jessica Alba as the violinist whose restored sight comes at a disturbing price.

Among the other Thai pictures to pique Hollywood interest was Banjong Pisanthanakun and Parkpoom Wongpoom's Shutter (2004), which focusses on the eerie images appearing in some developed photographs. When Masayuki Ochiai was hired to direct the Tokyo-set remake, Shutter (2008), Joshua Jackson and Rachael Taylor took the roles that had been previously enacted by Ananda Everingham and Natthaweeranuch Thongmee. Recasting also saw Mark Webber play the mild-mannered game show contestant put through hell in Daniel Stamm's 13 Sins (2014), which reworked Chukiat Sakveerakul's 13 Beloved (2006), which had been drawn from a long-running comic-book series.

Masala Makeovers

Bollywood can't resist taking a tilt at Hollywood movies. Some remakes mine such genuine classics as John Ford's The Whole Town's Talking (1935), Michael Curtiz's Angels With Dirty Faces (1938), Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca (1941), Frank Capra's Meet John Doe (1941), Stanley Donen's Seven Brides For Seven Brothers (1954), Stanley Kramer's An Affair to Remember (1957), and Arthur Penn's The Miracle Worker (1962).

Moving into the blockbuster era, a diverse sweep across the genres saw the release of Hindi variations on Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather (1972), Richard Donner's Superman (1978), Robert Benton's Kramer vs Kramer (1979), Lawrence Kasdan's Body Heat (1981), Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), Robert Zemeckis's Back to the Future (1985) and Forrest Gump (1994), Emile Ardolino's Dirty Dancing, Adrian Lyne's Fatal Attraction (both 1987), Penny Marshal's Big (1988), and Rob Reiner's When Harry Met Sally... (1989).

Even kidpix were reinvented, among them Chris Columbus's Home Alone (1990), Mrs Doubtfire (1993), and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001). Throughout the 1990s, India's biggest stars stepped into roles that had changed careers in Hollywood, although local censorship conventions meant that there were more masala musical numbers than passionate embraces in the remakes of Mick Jackson's The Bodyguard (1992), Jonathan Demme's Philadelphia (1993), Barry Levinson's Disclosure (1994), David Fincher's Se7en, Bryan Singer's The Usual Suspects (both 1995), Gregory Hoblit's Primal Fear, Michael Bay's The Rock (both 1996), P.J. Hogan's My Best Friend's Wedding, Jim Gillespie's I Know What You Did Last Summe (both 1997), Guy Ritchie's Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, Bobby and Peter Farrelly's There's Something About Mary (both 1998), and Sam Mendes's American Beauty (1999).

Among the post-millennial examples are Christopher Nolan's Memento (2000), Joel Schumacher's Phone Booth (2002), Tom Shadyac's Bruce Almighty (2003), Tony Scott's Man on Fire (2004), Andy Tennant's Hitch (2005), and Steve Pink's Accepted (2006). Interestingly, Bollywood chose to rethink F. Gary Gray's The Italian Job (2003) rather than Peter Collinson's 1969 British original. It was moderately well reviewed, unlike Sanjay Gupta's Kaante (2002), which took its inspiration from Reservoir Dogs (1992). Indeed, one of the few to express a positive opinion was Quentin Tarantino and Clint Eastwood similarly spoke highly of Lee Sang-il's Unforgiven (2013), which revisited the 1992 Oscar-winning Western of the same name.

Another Korean-Japanese collaboration saw Jerry Zucker's Ghost (1990) have a second life as Taro Otani's Ghost: In Your Arms Again (2010). In China, acclaimed director Zhang Yimou turned Joel and Ethan Coen's Blood Simple (1984) into A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop (2009), while in 2011, former muse Gong Li teamed with Andy Lau in the roles initially taken by Mel Gibson and Helen Hunt in Nancy Meyers's What Women Want (2000). Our favourite, however, has to be Farouk Ashu-Brown's Nollywood gem, Masoyiyata Titanic (aka My Beloved Titanic, 2003), which includes footage gleaned from James Cameron's Titanic (1997), as well as the shark sequences from Renny Harlin's Deep Blue Sea (1999).