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An old lady who becomes twenty again has conquered the Asian film market. The local box office hit with a ticket sales of 8.66 million, Miss Granny (2014) is storming markets in China, Vietnam and even Japan. The Chinese remake, 20, Once Again theatrically released last January cashed in USD 56.30 million in earnings, and ranking the highest grossing Korean-Chinese co-production film up to date.

Miss Granny also topped the local Vietnamese market as well. Its Vietnamese remake, Sweet 20 theatrically released last December and earned USD 4.76 million, making the film the highest grossing film (non-Vietnamese films not included) in the history of Vietnamese cinema. The Japanese market also looks optimistic. The Japanese version Miss Granny released on April 1st, scored number 1 in customer satisfaction on the Japanese ticket sales website, ‘Ticket Pia’. Miss Granny is scheduled for remakes in Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia.

It’s rare for a film to be remade in several different countries at the same time. To be a box office success in every country where it’s been remade is even more difficult. And with the commercial success of Miss Granny throughout the Asian region, filmmakers are showing keen interest in remaking Korean films.

The 2000s marked a time when Korean films actively stepped into the international market. Il Mare (2000), My Wife Is a Gangster (2001), Hi, Dharma! (2001), Marrying the Mafia (2002), The Phone (2002), Into the Mirror (2003), Old Boy (2003), A Tale Of Two Sisters (2003) and A Moment To Remember (2004) are some of the most noted titles to sell their overseas remake rights around this time.

Among the list, Il Mare was remade into The Lake House (2006) starring Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves while the pan-Asian box office hit, My Sassy Girl (2001) was also reintroduced in the U.S. remake of the same title in 2008. A number of Hollywood remakes came out such as Into the Mirror as Mirrors (2008) starring Kiefer Sutherland and Paula Patton, and A Tale Of Two Sisters as The Uninvited in 2009. Old Boy’s Hollywood remake, Oldboy came out in 2013.

Unfortunately, the box office outcome of these films rarely lived up to the attention that they initially received. Despite two leading Hollywood stars in the main cast, The Lake House only saw USD 52.33 million in the North American box office. My Sassy Girl didn’t even get the chance to reach the North American audience, with only limited releases in a couple of Asian countries. Mirrors earnings stopped at USD 30 million in the U.S. box office. It was no different for The Uninvited which earned USD 28 million.

Oldboy received the spotlight with Spike Lee as the film’s director and Josh Brolin as the male lead, but unlike the original version, the remake failed both critically and commercially with only USD 2 million earnings in the North American market. And these films are in fact fortunate cases as there are even more titles sold for remakes but still stuck in film company storage rooms.

Thorough localization is seen as the key to the success of A Wedding Invitation and Miss Granny. Both films came to fruition through the close collaboration between their Korean film company, CJ Entertainment, and Chinese local film companies. This worked as a winning match between Korean film companies’ story development expertise and local Chinese film companies’ overall local film expertise to effectively localize the content.

Minus the female protagonist’s death, A Wedding Invitation changed all the details and focused more on the romantic comedy aspect of the storyline, while Sweet 20 incorporated Vietnamese sensibility and culture in detail.

Another significant point about the localization of Miss Granny is that the foreign remake versions went into development almost at the same time as the original Korean one, which means each country’s specific characters were taken into consideration to create a version that suited the local market.

This type of approach is becoming a new trend in the foreign remakes of Korean films. And joint corporations with local companies are being set up for this. N.E.W. recently announced the company is planning to produce KANG Full’s web cartoon Witch in both Korea and China through HUACE&NEW, its joint investment corporation with Chinese entertainment company, Huace Media Group. HUACE&NEW is also working on the Chinese remakes of two last year’s releases, The Beauty Inside and The Phone.

More good news came on March 25th. Rocky Handsome, the Indian remake of LEE Jeong-beom’s The Man From Nowhere (2010) was released in India to rave reviews from both the critics and the audience.

From Scandal Makers (2008), I Saw The Devil (2010), Hello Ghost (2010), New World (2013), The Terror, LIVE (2013), to Top Star (2013), and recent releases such as INSANE and Time Renegades, as well as Canola, scheduled for release, the list of Korean films that sold their remake rights continues to build up.

A few titles even seem to be gearing up for production. The Hollywood version of Hello Ghost is known to be directed by Chris Columbus of the Home Alone series and the first and second Harry Potter films. Maybe this is the start of a new Hallyu (the Korean Wave).