Miike Takashi's 'Audition' getting the Hollywood Remake Treatment

[One Armed Boxer]

It seems that Hollywood has decided to lull us into false sense of security of late, it's been at least a few years since they've made one of their many disastrous attempts to remake an Asian horror movie, and like many others I'd reached the conclusion that they'd finally milked the genre dry.

Unfortunately that's not the case, as it's recently been reported that director Richard Gray ('The Lookalike') & producer Mario Kassar ('Terminator', 'Rambo') will be bringing us a US based version of the tale.

Like the 'Oldboy' remake, initial reports seem to be attempting to distance themselves from Takashi's version by emphasizing that the remake is going to be sticking more closely in line with Ryu Murakami's source novel. This is probably a good thing, as marketing it as a US remake of a Miike Takashi movie is likely to induce a mix of laughter and sighs of disbelief from most.

Personally, like every other US remake of an Asian horror movie, I think this is a bad idea. The original 'Audition' was one of the first movies to get me into Asian cinema, back when it got a limited release on the big screen in the UK in '99. I was an innocent 18 year old, and it had me hooked, 15 years on it's going to be a shame to see it get bastardized for a western audience, in what will no doubt be a watered down version of Takashi's vision.

[Cold Bishop]

Heh. The movie is pretty damn faithful to the novel, so it think it's pretty transparent what they're doing.

All the meanwhile, there's another Murakami novel just dying for an adaptation: the brilliant Coin Locker Babies. Not that I'd trust anyone in Hollywood short of a David Fincher or David Cronenberg to do it justice. Takashi Miike actually had pretty much a free pass to make an adaptation, but could never raise the funding.

[Superfly]

Ughhh. I am really no longer going to see remakes of my favorite Asian Films. Oldboy was a disaster. Yes The Departed was passable and IMHO The US version of the Ring surpassed the original. But more often than not we get dumpster fires like Bangkok Dangerous, The Grudge, Dark Water, The Eye etc.