Dark Water (5 Stars)

This review refers to the original 2002 Japanese version of "Dark Water", not the 2005 American remake. It's the scariest film I've ever seen. However often I watch it the moments of suspense still make me jump in my chair. I'm not sure what makes it so successful, but maybe it's the mixture of natural horror that everyone can relate to (the leaking roof) and the supernatural elements.

I saw this film when it was new, and I was excited when I heard it would be remade with Jennifer Connelly, Tim Roth and Pete Postlethwaite. Okay, I admit that Jennifer Connelly has a very rigid unemotional way of acting which doesn't work in every role, but Tim Roth and Pete Postlethwaite are two of my favorite actors, so the remake would have to be good, right?

Wrong!

The remake was a mess. It followed the original relatively closely, but it just didn't have the soul of the original. Where the original was scary, the remake was boring.

This raises the question of what the point of remakes is. The Hollywood executives can answer this best. Every film is a risk. Millions might be spent on making a film, and then it flops at the box office. So if they discover a foreign film that was a success in its country of production they think they can just duplicate it to be certain of success. And to make even more sure it'll be a hit they can throw in a few top actors, as in the case of "Dark Water".

But if a film is going to be duplicated, why not just dub the vocals of the original? Jennifer Connelly's voice could have been imprinted on the Japanese film. I know that dubbing is much criticised among film fans, but I have no problems with dubbing if it's done well. I prefer to look at the picture during a film, not be forced to read the dialog. Films with a lot of fast speech (such as "Run Lola Run") are impossible to enjoy with subtitles. Dubbing can be an advantage if done well. The problem is that it's usually done badly.

Remaking is more than dubbing. The locations are usually changed to make the film more relevant to the new audience. For instance, the remake of "Dark Water" changes the story's location from Japan to New York (Roosevelt Island). In many films plot changes are made because they are thought to make the films more attractive to American viewers. In particular, many remakes of foreign films have a "happy ending" missing in the original. A good example is "The Vanishing".

Rather than dwell on failures, let me name a few films that have been successfully remade.

"Insomnia" (2002) is a remake of a 1997 Norwegian film with the same name. The action is relocated from Tromso to Alaska. The remake is a success due to the high quality of acting by Robin Williams and Al Pacino, but it lacks the moral ambiguities of the original, in which the detective is more of a "bad guy".

"The Ring" (2002) is faster paced that the 1998 Japanese film with the same name. The original has too many red herrings to mislead the viewer, whereas the remake is very straight forward.

"City of Angels" (1998) is a curious remake of the 1987 German film, "The Heavens over Berlin". Probably the main reason for its success is that very few Americans know the original. Patches of dialog are repeated 1-to-1 in the remake which only make sense if you have seen the original. The original is very complex, with subplots about the division of Berlin and the history of story-telling, but the remake is simplified to its core as a love story.