Top 10 Worst Asian Remakes

I don’t mind making Top 10 lists on subjects I enjoy but a friend of the site, Heather over at Movie Mobsters, suggested after reading my Top 10 Asian Remakes article, to make a worst remake list. I didn’t know what I was getting myself into because I never had to revisit crappy films and then judge them on how terrible they were. Until now. Let’s just get to the list so we can move on and avoid these movies at all cost.  You see these on your Netflix queue, remove them. You walk by them at Hollywood video, walk away. You are over a friends house and you see one of these in their DVD collection, break it in front on them. Let kick off this list:

What bad things can I say about The Eye? Well how about that its premise is implausible and the entire story is completely unbelievable. Movies about paranormal or psychic activities usually require you to suspend disbelief. The story requires more stretch than usual because Jessica Alba’s character plays a wealthy, good looking professional violinist who is somehow still a single loner. My whole point is, this film is predictable, formulaic, and rehashed. It’s not something we haven’t seen before. Jessica Alba does OK with her role, but nothing award-winning to say the least. That last sentence should hint that this movie isn’t a complete waste of time though which lands it at the bottom of the countdown.

Shall We Dansu portrayed Japan as an emotionally repressed place where husbands are unable to publically (and even privately) show affection for their wives and where learning to dance is considered unmanly. Koji’s secrecy makes sense here. This simply isn’t true of contemporary America. Unfortunately this American version of the wonderful Japanese film fails to capture the charm of the original. Mr. Gere and Ms. Sarandon are perhaps miscast causing the off-balance feeling of the film and the depleted expectations.

Gozilla was a wuss in this remake. I’d much rather see it fight the military and destroy the city: it makes for a more exciting ride and it makes the monster look like a true threat. Instead we get chase scenes. An unthrilling, boring monster movie, about a stupid looking monster that attacks New York to lay its eggs. Boring to the end, it even rips off Jurassic Park with its bland ending involving tons of little Godzillas. I thought this would be all the fun of the cheesy Japenese movies and all of the glittering special effects of Hollywood rolled into one fun package. Unfortunately, the writing wasn’t so much a script as it was a collection of one-liners and cliches stolen from other movies.

Like in the Ring, the story starts with the picking off of a bunch of arbitrary characters who receive a call from themselves in the future, and get a voicemail of themselves when they die. The Ring was watchable and since this kind of ripped off that film there are some good premise and some cool scenes but this movie is not scary, totally predictable, and has some of the lamest lines and bad acting of a movie in recent memory. This is one of those movies where you try and wait it out hoping that there will be a pay off at the end. Praying that everything will come together in the end and it will all add up. No such luck here!

Shutter is another one of those films set in Japan with creepy spirits in the form of young Japanese girls. The derivative nature of the film hampers our enjoyment of even the few moderately suspenseful scenes director Masayuki Ochiai has been able to wring out of this shopworn material. I sincerely hope that everyone who watches this film catches onto my gist. This is yet another in the long line of unoriginal Japanese horror remakes in which the actors paint by the numbers, and the scares can be seen from orbit. Oh, and Joshua Jackson sucked on Dawsons Creek, he sucks on Fringe, and hes terrible here too.

This film is billed as a romantic comedy, but it is neither romantic nor funny. It is the story of a nice college boy who falls in love with a destructive girl. The ending had some heart, but overall the film never materializes into anything enjoyable, believable or rewatchable. In the end, I was left wondering why Charlie felt so strongly attracted to an incredibly rude, destructive, selfish, irrational alcoholic who, even after she has pulled herself together, is still completely irrational with silly talk about destiny. Take destiny into your own hands and avoid this remake!

Finally! Tortilla Soup is such an uplifting and lighthearted portrayal of contemporary Mexican-American life. Oh wait, thats what makes it so dreadful. The scenes where they are fighting with their current and ex-boyfriends are so bad they made me cringe. Ditto the plate-breaking scene. How sad – this could have been a great re-working of an excellent screenplay. The only redeeming quality about this movie is the food. The rest of it resembles a bad high school drama production.

Pulse isn’t a total loss, though its best elements are still pretty derivative. The production design is moody and atmospheric, saturating the screen with melancholy blues and greens. Oops! Too bad The Ring already used that trick.  Where Kairo successfully builds up the tension by not telling much about what is really going on, Pulse talks too much, trying unnecessarily hard to explain the logics of the invasion. Overall, Pulse left me so disappointed. It truly let me down and I really, really did want to like it.

You probably need to be drunk or high to fully appreciate this film because it sucks ass. There is enough cheese in this film to fill the Rose Bowl. The storyline, dialogue, acting, fight choreography and the sets are all terrible, filled with a cast of characters that are instantly forgettable. You kind of wish at the end of the film that a huge fireball would come and engulf them all. Even at 81 minutes this film is too long. Shame on you David Carradine, shame.

The Uninvited deserves a special tongue-lashing. Not just because it is complete garbage, but moreso they took one of the most artful Korean films of the past decade, a subtle, beautifully-acted thriller with gorgeous art direction and photography, and turn it into a dumbed down piece of Hollywood crap of the worst order. The Uninvited was basically 87 minutes of my life gone down the drain. Saddled with over the top, one-note performances, this movie is undone early enough by casting of Emily Browning, a lead actress who seems far too young for the role she is playing, and one also woefully unprepared to bring any depth to the role. I could go on and on but I just want to be done with this list already as I have subjected myself to enough moronic cinema for one week. The Uninvited is easily the worst movie I’ve seen in recent memory and definetely receives the honor of being the worst Asian remake of all time.

Thoughts? Opinions? Have your own list? Sound off in the comments below. I hope you enjoyed my list!