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Ain't Afraid of No Ghost

By Steven Lloyd Wilson | Posted Under Trade News | Comments (4)

ghost.jpg

Paramount has decided that the best way to pay back Japan for making atrocious Americanized versions of their supernatural horror films is to remake Ghost with Japanese actors and release it in Japan. Wouldn’t it be less culturally offensive to just drop another Fat Boy on Hiroshima?

The motivation for the move is the plummeting revenue of American films in Japan, which until recently had just been subtitled, but now even dubbing isn’t reversing the tide of Japanese seeing Japanese films instead of American ones. This is just baffling on two levels. First, it’s inexplicable why Japanese would watch films made by Japanese talent in the Japanese language. It’s not like in America we only watch American films. Second, everyone knows that when movie revenue goes down, it’s because of Internet piracy and cannot have the slightest connection whatsoever with the quality of the product. How can Paramount be so blind as to actually tweak their product in the face of a competitive market instead of demanding legislation to guarantee their revenue streams? It’s just un-American.

But to set aside those lines of sarcastic reasoning, there’s just a one word question: Ghost? Or to be more precise: huh?

(source: SlashFilm)









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Comments

I can kinda see the logic in it though. Japanese culture is a lot more spirit-friendly than ours, thanks to Shinto traditions.

Of course, if this makes money, they will bring it back over here.

Posted by: Vermillion at June 10, 2010 10:42 AM

I don't know why your questioning the logic, SLW. Replace Patrick Swayze with a Zatoichi and Demi Moore with Robo-Geisha and you have box office gold.

Posted by: admin at June 10, 2010 10:42 AM

That was one of my favorite things about Japanese spirit movies. There's rarely a same-old-same-old "ohmigoooosh am I going craaazy? I'm just seeing things, aren't I?" built-up. Everyone totally just gets to the point.

"Hey Mitsuko, how's it going?"
"Yeah, um, my new apartment's haunted by an evil spirit and I'm trying to figure out how to get rid of it. I called the exorcist but he just ran away screaming so I'm pretty bummed right now."
"Lame. Good luck with that. I'm slightly psychic because we all are in asian horror movies, want me to take a look?"
"Of course! That can't end badly at all."

One of my favorite goofy parts of one of the (non-US) Grudge movies is when the realtor selling the house of death knows it's a house of death, but the mom of the family she's selling it to is kinda psychic and can sense the ghosts and the realtor's afraid if the ghosts know she can sense them they'll murder everyone (of course, we say, silly naive realtor, they'll murder them all ANYWAY), so she gives her a bottle of sake and is like "this booze is totes sensitive to spirit vibrations so take a swig every so often and if it tastes bitter, there are horrible nightmarish creatures in the room with you and you should go for a walk or something." AROO? O_o

Posted by: Nat Kittyface at June 10, 2010 11:52 AM

Fat Man and Little Boy. Unless you're talking overpriced mortorcycles with leather tassles and Bon Jovi fringe. Then drop as many of those on Japan as you want.

Posted by: longcoat000 at June 10, 2010 4:54 PM