6 best remakes of Japanese movies

The Japanese have always been a source of creative brilliance, but it's not only film enthusiasts who've taken notice. Hollywood has a history of borrowing from the East, with several remakes eclipsing their originals at the box office and even winning prominent awards. We've listed six of the most successful.

The Japanese classics that became global hits

The Magnificent Seven (1960)

Long before the contemporary Denzel Washington version, John Sturges' classic Western with Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen was a box-office bonanza. It's a remake of Akira Kurosawa's 1954 classic, Seven Samurai, a movie about seven swordsmen who are paid to defend a village from bandits. Sturges astutely brought the samurai to the American Old West and substituted swords with six-shooters.

A Fistful of Dollars (1964)

Another Western, another Kurosawa remake. This time around, director Sergio Leone basically stole Kurosawa's Yojimbo and made the movie that propelled Clint Eastwood into superstardom. The movie is a lone drifter who comes to town in a place divided by two opposing gangs and pits them against each other. This ‘Spaghetti Western’ was an unauthorised remake, prompting a lawsuit from the production company on the original, but its impact on cinema cannot be denied.

The Ring (2002)

During the early 2000s, Hollywood was peak-fascinated with Japanese horror or J-horror. The trigger was Gore Verbinski's chilling remake of Hideo Nakata's cult hit of 1998, Ring (or Ringu). The legend of a haunted videotape that kills anyone watching it in seven days became an international phenomenon, single-handedly introducing the world to the legendary ghostly figure of Samara (or Sadako in the original).

The Grudge (2004)

After the success of The Ring, director Takashi Shimizu was sent from Japan to re-make his own film, Ju-On: The Grudge, for American audiences. And re-make it, he did. The end result was a box office hit. It distilled perfectly the spooky ambiance and un-linear structure of the original and widened its appeal to a global market.

The Departed (2006)

It may come as a shock to some readers to know that Oscar-winning crime thriller by Martin Scorsese is a remake. The Departed is a shot-for-shot remake of the masterful 2002 Hong Kong film Infernal Affairs. Although the original is based in Hong Kong, Scorsese transplanted the tale of a police mole and an undercover police officer to Boston. The outcome was a dark American epic that ultimately earned Scorsese his long-overdue Best Director Academy Award.

Godzilla (2014)

Whereas the 1998 remake was a critical failure, Gareth Edwards' 2014 Godzilla managed to pay its respects while forging a contemporary blockbuster. The original 1954 film Gojira had been a sombre metaphor for the nuclear anxieties of Japan in the post-war period. The remake restored that sombre tone, producing a visually stunning and reverent homage to the iconic beast.

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