The Heyday of Remake Films 

 CALL / HARD HIT / Hostage: Missing Celebrity 

Korean remakes of foreign films are receiving attention once again. CALL was released on Netflix last November, and HARD HIT was released in June and became a hot title in the first half of this year. Hostage: Missing Celebrity is currently the number one title at the domestic box office, attracting 450,000 viewers in just four days.

Believer / Intimate Strangers

The remake boom in the Korean industry started in 2018. In the spring of that year, remakes of Japanese films like Golden Slumber (1.38 million), Little Forest (1.5 million), and Be With You (2.6 million) were released one after another. Then Believer (5.2 million) and Intimate Strangers (5.29 million) saw successes at the box office by selling more than 5 million tickets each. Although the highly anticipated film ILLANG: THE WOLF BRIGADE (890 thousand)  performed poorly than expected, most of the popular titles people talked at the time were remake films. Believer is the remake of the Chinese film Drug War (2013), but the character of Mr. Lee was added as the boss of the drug cartel to enhance the mystery element. ntimate Strangers is the remake of the Italian film Perfect Strangers (2016), but the added childhood scene in the opening allowed an emphasis on friendship in the way Koreans view this special relationship.

It’s encouraging to hear some say that these successful remakes outperformed the originals. The reason why they could be successful at the box office while retaining artistic value was because they didn’t restrict themselves to stick to the original story and they freely adjusted it to fit the setting of Korea. The audience was especially responsive to the actors and their performances. Although the subject matter remained the same, the Korean audience was more interested in watching Korean actors and this allowed them to get immersed in the story even more. Like so, remakes of foreign films aren’t just about changing the setting to Korea. The original story is used to make a completely different film with competitive ideas that make them Korean. Even though these films start with preexisting stories, it still takes 2 years to adjust the script. Since the scripts need to be changed to meet Korean sentiments, it’s not much different from starting a regular production from scratch which takes 4 to 5 years from the planning stage until it is distributed. The biggest benefit to making a remake film is that the original film could be used as a reference to speed up the casting process, and securing investors will also be easier.

On the other hand, the overflow of successful remake films in 2018 made many worry that there is a shortage of original Korean films being released. But more and more, production companies and producers are developing both original scripts and remakes of existing content at the same time. From their standpoint, remakes of preexisting films are not much different from cinematizing a best-selling novel or a webtoon. They’re in constant need of new ideas that meet the standard of quality Korean productions, and they’re venturing out in other routes because of that. In other words, they were able to secure another source that could develop into more Korean productions. Many filmmakers are looking for good ideas or stories from films that screened in domestic theaters or film festivals but weren’t widely recognized by the public. Since these originals are already proven to be high in quality, there’s a higher chance they’ll perform successfully once they’re reinterpreted for the Korean audience.

CALL

When we take a look at some of the recent films, the only thing the Puerto Rican film The Caller (2011) and its remake CALL have in common is the setup. In both films, a stranger calls the protagonist who’s at home and that call is from the past, but the stories are completely different. In the original, Mary is someone who lives by herself after her divorce from a violent husband, while in CALL, Seoyeon (Park Shinhye) lives with her family. In The Caller, Rose only appears through her voice to torture Mary, but Youngsook (Jun Jongseo) in CALL murders constantly and her psychopathic disposition is seen visually. At first, Seoyeon and Youngsook work together to make a life-changing  difference in the past, but having Youngsook turn into a monster who kills the people around Seoyeon makes CALL even more terrifying. If the original film can be described as a thriller, CALL is a brutal horror, so these two titles have very different cinematic moods. In addition, CALL also focuses more on visually showing how they change the time in the past, like an SF film with a time machine. CALL is an example of how a film and a story expanded beyond its genre of the mystery thriller.

HARD HIT

HARD HIT is a remake of the Spanish film Retribution (2015), which kept almost all of the original plot. But instead of having the film set in Galicia, Spain, they changed the setting to Busan. The entire film was shot in Busan, so Busan’s tourist attractions (Haeundae, Yeongdong Bridge, etc.) can be seen in the background.  The film speaks true to the director’s intention which was to utilize the great city of Busan “as a huge set”. Since many scenes unfold in this thriller in the limited space of car’s interior, it was a smart move to choose Busan as the location for the car to race in. In the car chase scenes, Busan’s bridges and the ocean are seen in the background with much presence, differentiating it from the original. However, the premise of having a bomb attached to the car, and knowing that the car will explode once the characters get out, is the same as the original. In Retribution, Carlos and his family are full of distrust. His wife is having an affair, and their rebellious daughter resents Carlos. But in HARD HIT, the wife and the daughter’s distrust were reduced, and they added a kidnapping scene of the daughter. When the situation comes to an end in the remake, the bank manager Sungkyu (Jo Woojin) admits to his crime and becomes a witness after he blows the whistle on the bank, creating a new ending. Both the original and the remake depend on the speed and the tension created through the thrilling events, but their endings are different. In the original, they focused on the reconciliation of the broken family while the remake is more about Sungkyu putting things back in place after feeling a sense of guilt.

Hostage: Missing Celebrity

In the third week of August, the number one title at the Korean box office is Hostage: Missing Celebrity, a remake of the Chinese film Saving Mr. Wu (2015), based on the true story of the abduction of a star in 2004. Andy Lau plays Mr. Wu, and it reconstructs the abduction case in a documentary-like format by showing the 20 hours after the abduction and the process it took prior to the abduction. On the other hand, director Pil Gamseong didn’t simply make a remake of the original. It’s true he was inspired by the abduction case, but Hostage: Missing Celebrity is a completely different thriller of a different nature. The only concept he took from the original is the premise that a star gets abducted. The police never get hurt or die in the Chinese film (due to censorship), but the remake has the villain kill and control the police at will. Most of all, Hostage: Missing Celebrity is a genre film that puts popular actor Hwang Jungmin in a dire situation. Choi Kiwan (Kim Jaebum) and his men who torture Hwang Jungmin aren’t realistic characters. Rather, they’re over-the-top, but they’re characters we’ve gotten used to after seeing Korean noirs and brutal thrillers. In other words, Hostage: Missing Celebrity is a film that’s faithful to the genre in order to be cinematically entertaining. This is proven through Hwang’s confrontations against the captors as well as the ending where he suffers from the aftereffects of the abduction.

Remakes of the crime thriller genre are more likely to communicate better than comedies that must overcome the barriers of language, humor, and cultural practices. As seen through CALL, HARD HIT , and Hostage: Missing Celebrity, the topic of survival is bound to work when a character is put in a grave situation. There have been various Korean remakes of foreign films in the past, and a common characteristic we see is that stories were expanded and genres were mixed. Korean remakes go beyond the simple constructions of the original and they add multiple layers to the story while creating new tones by mixing genres. Amid such cinematic attempts, they’re also looking for the solution on how to make films cinematically Korean (cinematically friendly). Still Life (2013), The Invisible Guest (2016), and Soul Mate (2017) are some of the films that will soon be remade in Korea. What’s important is not how they’ll be remade, but as always, the ones that captivate the hearts of the audience will be the ones to survive.