Cardiac161

The sequel to The Ring is coming in November 2004.

The Grudge will be shown a few weeks before that.

Dark Water is in post production and will be released sometime at the end of the year or early 2005.

I am a huge fan of Japanese cinema and it really excites me to know that all three projects are big films by themselves and that all feature great directors.

The Ring 2 (with Naomi Watts) is actually being directed by Hideo Nakata himself. I thank Dreamworks for giving it to him rather than some hack music video director.

The Grudge is being helmed by Takashi Shimizu, the director of the original Japanese feature.

Dark Water (whose original Japanese director was Nakata too)stars Jennifer Connelly and directed by Walter Salles, the Brazilian director who did The Motorcycle Diaries.

Love the fact that these movies would bring a change in the Hollywood horror field and am totally looking forward to them!!!

DonnachaOne

None of the three you mentioned are Japanese.

They're American remakes of Japanese films, but that doesn't make them Japanese.

Frankly, I think this is all just another example of how creatively bankrupt the Hollywood business can be. I sure hope they're good...

steebo777

Word.

harosa

I'm sure the guy knows they're remakes, he just worded it wrong, man, some people are just nitpicky bastards.

yecul

I'm fine with it. The Ring was done well and you know what, it got a whole bunch of people to check out Ringu (and sequels?) that never would have.

Also, I don't think Hollywood is necessarily creatively bankrupt. They just act that way.

Rival11

Once again, I'm just thankfull hollywood is putting out some "real" horror flicks - I remember a dicussion a while back about this and I would like to thank the Japanese for saving us from Scream 4 (even though we are stealing their movies for remakes)

Cardiac161

I guess I am more glad with the fact that the studios greenlit these projects with the original Japanese directors behind the camera.

Supermallet

I am very excited for Ring 2, because it's not a remake of the Japanese Ring 2, and that film sucked donkey balls.

I'm not excited about The Grudge because the original was subpar.

I could be excited about Dark Water. The original had a few good moments, but was nowhere near as good as Ring.

cultshock

I think its interesting that Jennifer Connelly was originally considered for the Ring remake, and now she ends up being in the Dark Water remake.

DonnachaOne

I don't think it even matters at all that Nakata and Shimizu are making the American reinventions of their own films.

There's the bad:

George Sluizer, anyone? Ole Bornedal? Francis Veber? Jean-Marie Gaubert?

There's the good:

Hitchcock. Mann. Ozu.

There's the once-was-good-but-remake-was-very-bad:

Roger Vadim


There was a thread about this earlier. I think it dissolved into people bitching about whether or not Desperado was a remake of El Mariachi...

harosa

I personally loved the Nightwatch and Vanishing remakes.

redskull47

Or they could just release the original versions.

DonnachaOne

That's just crazy talk!

Obey The D

I know I'm in the minority, but overall, I found "The Ring" to be superior to it's japanese original, Ringu (Ring).
I will give Ringu credit due to the fact that I thought the ending was more effective then the remakes, but most of the "scares" were almost laughable when compared to the remake (especially the closet scene).

Duder

I thought the American remake of The Ring was far superior to the Japanese original too. Frankly, I don't understand why people are so vehemently opposed to these particular horror remakes. Not only is it bringing a new style of horror to American cinema, but these remakes tend to ensure that the original films are released over here as well--fans of the Japanese Ring should be grateful that DreamWorks did the remake, because in doing so they acquired the rights to the original and put it on R1 DVD.

Supermallet

I thought The Ring was well done, but went for a different tactic than Ring. The Ring tried to scare you every five minutes, but Ring went with very few jump scares and more mounting tension, so the payoff was infinitely scarier.

I'm not opposed to these remakes at all. If they give exposure to the original films, or turn out to be better than the originals (in the case of The Grudge and Dark Water), I'm all for it.

Shagrath

I saw the trailer for The Grudge over at comingsoon.. It looks horrible. The trailer pretty much copies several of the original scenes exactly, down to the same angles and everything, but it just does it with white people instead.

The Grudge Trailer

Why do they feel the need to remake recent movies for stupid Americans?

SMGFanatic

Yes but annoying as it is, mainstream subtitled movies aren't as accepted in the US because not many people like to "read" movies. I get annoyed over this fact because I love foreign films and I am all for the originals and everything, but I also think this is an interesting exercise in how the original director is able to show his or her craft in a way to let American audiences get exposed to that type of culture without the pain of having to read dialogue.

Also I think its also another way the director is able to explore his or her own territory and fix certain things that did not seem to work the first time around. The director of The Grudge crammed some parts from all of The Grudge films and I would love to just see how he incorporates everything for this more "American-ized" version.

In a time where Hollywood is losing originality and picking up on trends than breaking off from what everyone else is doing (like superhero/comic movies? japanese horror films?) its nice to see that although this IS happening they are also letting other cultures give their hand in helping to define what makes these certain movies tick instead of letting a complete Americanized ripoff of how an American would interperate the specific genre.

Plus it's got Sarah Michelle Gellar in it and I just finished watching an episode of Buffy ("Normal Again" from season 6) and am just in amazement of her acting chops in that show. Can't wait for The Grudge.