What the fuck are you Waps doing here? Animuspot's five forums down.
No film has ever been banned in America, at least in the last decade or so. The price's unreasonable as it's a niche product, at least from the perspective of American distributors. That's likely to change with the remake, of course.

The original BR is a fun B-movie with little substance beyond the three leads. Even the "message" of the book (Japan is losing the respect of its children and decides to do something about it) is virtually lost on the movie.

That said, a US remake is pointless and probably won't come to fruition for the reason listed above.

They bought the remake rights to the book, not the movie.

Really? BR was released in France a few years ago, and I don't think France has more to spend than the US regarding that kind of stuff...

The cost has been cited as one reason. Other reason, reading this, is that Toei wants the movie to have a wide release. Both aren't feasible for smaller distributors, and big studios probably don't didn't want the controversy. Of course, that same page has Toei guys saying that the content and themes are the reason. Whatever you pick.

It's also likely that they charged higher for North American distribution, as that would garner more money than France.

Controversy = sales, everyone knows this. Besides it's not like America hasn't dealt with films of similar themes, Lord of the Flies and Elephant come to mind.

No one picked it up for the same reason noone picks up jsut about every niche Japanese film: the wapanese have already downloaded it.

Different regions. Original was done in Japan, which is known for having limited money on Live Action flics. The company purchased the rights to make a remake, as they know they can make more money by remaking it with a bigger budget and catering to their regions tastes rather than just buying the rights to release the foriegn version in theaters.

The original "ring" film, I believe, led to 5 different regional remakes.

It has nothing to do with when the movie was released. Rather with believed higher profits due to releasing a regional version over a foriegn dubbed or dubbed version.

I didnt see the original film, but have read the book. The concept you quoted is quite spot on. Maybe the film stated that, but in the book, it was just an annual event the military used to gain information.

I think the concept of the movie is just to watch Japanese schoolgirls killing each other. ;)

The reason why BR only really works in Japan is because of they are a homogenic society.
Because the movie was, initially anyway, about the social effects of an economically failing country, being all-Japanese eliminated the main issue that will plague the American remake: race.
In the American remake, you're gonna have to include whites, black, asians, hispanics, etc, and that means stereotypes. Then there's the social cliques that each of these kids hangs with...those will be stereotyped too.

If you have a look at Lord of the Flies, they were all white British boys.
If you have a look at Big Brother (in Australia anyway), they're all white. This season introduced the very first asian, and she was a chick. Never mind that she was the most bogan asian chick ever seen, and a total skank bot.
Lost handles it very well, although it too borders on certain cliches of each of the different ethnicities and social stereotypes.

But you get my drift.
When you get further along BR, it was more about the breakdown of friendships because of the extreme paranoia and the instinct for survival.
In a movie that includes kids of varied ethnicities, it would be very difficult NOT to bring up extreme racial prejudice as a reason to kill the other person.
The other main reason for a kill in the movie would be because of social clique.

The New York Times' website had an article on the remake and the reaction following Variety's announcement of the news. It's definitely a must-read.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/09/mo...=1&oref=slogin

He'd never want to make a bad movie, huh? Please, Mr. Lee, explain The Grudge.

while i would love to see an american BR, it would spark unneccesary racial tension like Tama suggested and another whole guns/youth argument ala Columbine. in any case, BR the original movie is still one of my favorites and hopefully it will not be desecrated like other americanized asian films

I don't know if the grudge was base on a book but I know that the original movie sucked really bad, so making a remake from a really bad movie can't really result in something better...

The Grudge wasn't good, but it did have some freaky scenes in it. Well, one or two. I do remember being pretty creeped out for a few nights afterward. I still think The Ring is the best J-Horror remake so far. Now, Ring 2 ...I want to forget that ever happened.

Well, at least it's guaranteed to suck. That's better than having some hope of a decent movie only to have that dashed away in an instant. Good ol' america, you never disappoint.

Did anyone like BR2? I personally thought there were okay parts but I was falling asleep. Br1 I thought was wicked and if there was a remake, id go see it, even if it sucked, just for the hell of it.

BR2 was awful. Entertaining, but awful and a disappointment. I was actually really sad to see they dropped the ball on it.

man...i remember watching the part when
SPOILER WARNING (i dont know how to do the spoiler tag)
edit: nvm figured it out

The film has nothing to do with race at all, so they're rewriting the entire script now with a racial subplot? Even if they did, when has any film had such an influence as to provoke school shootings and racial tension? I think it would be a filmmaker's dream to have that kind of power.

I vote Arnold Schwarzenegger as Kitano.

I was gonna say "So I guess they got bored of making movies out of comic books then" but then I remembered that Battle Royale is also in comic book form. ._>

Well, it's not all that uncommon to find a novel being adapted into a manga in Japan. The manga came before the movie did anyways.

lol jokes. Kitano was such a weird character.

Now that I think about, this remake could actually be pretty decent if they actually follow the book more closely. You know, not just "lol island with kids killing each other", but character development and attachment.


oh wai- this is american film. nvm

mmm if they do that, it could get a bit long. lol i loved...yeah im spoiling stuff again lol

Meh, the average length these days is about two hours, closer to three for movies that you know will be decent. In that time, you could put a lot of development into the film. You just have to know how to cut down conversations and what to exclude.

Like I said though, American movies are generally crap. They're probably going to make the remake shot for shot, just with american kids and more explosions. Which is a BIG shame since there's a lot they can use and a really excellent story they can tell... that, you know, actually means something.

But no one goes to the movies for shit like that anyways

This was one of the greatest movies I seen. I have also yet to see the second one.