Watch the original Thai version
Married couples move to Japan only to be stalked by a vengeful spirit…
Banjong Pisanthanakun’s and Parkpoom Wongpoom’s phenomenal SHUTTER (Thailand, 2004) is one of the best ghost stories of all time. The American version (with much Japanese influence) is an insult, an extremely poor remake, loaded with the mundane for the lowest common denominator of American audiences.
We’ve seen it one too many times. An overseas film soars and American producers get the rights, rewrite, reshoot, change the story, and dump it upon moviegoers instead of bringing us the bona fide original.
Where the original tale of SHUTTER brings audiences a solid story with excellent acting, visuals and pace, the new incarnation is watered down, sterile and is a couple steps away from appearing like a Lifetime movie of the week.
In this poorly crafted version, Jane (Rachael Taylor) moves with her husband, Ben (Joshua Jackson) to Japan so he can continue his career in photography. After thinking they hit a woman while driving, the couple notices strange images appearing on their photos. Soon enough, they realize it’s spirit photography and the woman in the images is the woman they had run over – Megumi Okina, a Japanese scream queen who appeared in JU-ON and several others.
The scares are non-existent, and the heavy atmosphere that elicited fear in the original is completely lost. There is no suspense whatsoever, just some screams, some running around, a reveal one can see coming a million miles away, and a quiet resolution.
Though an American production, the crew and most of the actors are Japanese, and the movie was made on location in Tokyo. However, the American backers, Japanese, American and Thai producers, did little to make this a stunning motion picture for audiences.
Most important, why are foreign films reshot to begin with? There’s a belief that American audiences are “subtitle phobic”. Hmm… I guess the millions CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON made was just a fluke. At the cinema, is if difficult to find a seat. Granted, if someone has a better twist on a movie and wants to shell out millions to do a reshoot, go right ahead. However, do us all a favor and bring those non-English speaking films to theatres for us to decide. Sadly, where I now reside, there are no independent cinemas devoted to foreign, independent and quirky cinema. Instead, I have to cope with the latest top-10 movie fair that usually induces vomiting.
The only Americanized version that clearly outshined the original is THE RING (USA/Japan, 2002). Here, the ho-hum tale became a grand mystery with one hell of an unsettling aesthetic. Otherwise, I’ll take the originals every time.
Foreign language horror recommendations (besides the aforementioned): AUDITION (Japan, 1999), A TALE OF TWO SISTERS (Korea, 2002), THE ORPHANAGE (Spain/Mexico, 2007), MARTYRS (France/Canada, 2008), THE UNINVITED GUEST (Spain, 2004), LET THE RIGHT ONE IN (Sweden, 2008) and PREMONITION (Japan, 2004).
1 out of 5 stars