Asian Mainstays Come to Hollywood

Man, this physically pains me. Like Michael Bay level hurt. But sadly, I understand that Hollywood is almost always about the money, and almost never about preserving credibility or talent. Evidence? At least five huge mainstays in popular Korean cinema and Japanese anime are being converted to the Western big screen and the outlook is pretty murky. I'm tempted to just out-and-out call them terrible but I don't like to judge until I see the final product...but really, lets go through these one by one.



Dragonball

Yeah its kinda old news that one of the biggest the Japanese anime series of all time is being converted to a live action film but it seemed to flow with the theme of this post. Now I'm not a huge Dragonball Z fan, although I watched a ton of it back when I was young. I'm predict this
is going to be another 'Transformers' where the acting is stale, the film will lean far too heavily on graphics, the fanboys will be pissed that the movie didn't follow the original storyline,
the film will be overly stylized with no sense of irony...oh yeah, and it'll make a ton a money. Mind you, since I'm not a huge fan, I'm not particularly pained by this, I mean really, how would they make it true to the original text? Have them stand around staring at each other sizing each other up for 45 minutes?



Oldboy

One of my favorite movies of all time. And who do they turn the reins over to? Steven Spielberg and Will Smith. Sigh. They do a good marketing twist though. When asked if the movie will be the same as the Korean version Will Smith responds, "we're going farther than that, we're going to adapt it from the original comic." How do we read this? Ah, we can't have a storyline as controversial as the Korean Oldboy but we don't want to upset the fanboys so we give a wishy-washy answer. Hmmm maybe Spielberg can include some aliens a la the recent Indiana Jones movie or A.I. Or maybe Will Smith can write a pop-rap song about being stuck in a room for a decade.



JSA (Joint Security Area in Korea...Joint Security America in the U.S.)

Yes, I agree. The social-political context between the US-Mexico border parallels the North/South Korean border. Man. And while I might not be a scholar in US history, I don't think that at any point being friends with Mexican border guards could potentially cause a full-scale war. How exactly do you pull off this film? Oh I see, get the guy who wrote 'King Arthur' to do it. That'll be good.



Cowboy Bebop

My favorite anime series is becoming a live action film, and I'm actually quite calm about it. I'm actually kind of interested in what they'll do. So far Keanu Reeves has been pulled in for Spike which, I guess is kind of fitting (in all honesty you don't need crazy acting chops to play Spike, just lean on the wall a lot and smoke). I tell you what. Keep the gritty atmosphere and I'll watch. Moreover, you've got the Matrix team behind it which makes me much more optimistic. Please, please, please...keep 'Tank' on the project. Their music is out of this world.



Akira

In a good case scenario this movie will be good, and surprisingly I'm optimistic as its being described as 'Blade Runner' meets 'City of God.' Wow, nice name dropping there Warner Brothers. You even made a bitter skeptic like me re-think the entire project. Moreover the exec bringing this to the table is the same person who spearheaded the new Batman franchise and 300 which have a similar dark atmospheres - so the chances of them candy-coating Akira are a bit less than if, oh, Spielberg took on this project. However, if they do re-vamp the ending to be more kid-friendly the movie is done-for, but in all fairness, how do you pull off a giant disgusting mutating blob that kills everyone in Tokyo and make it work for an American audience? Time will tell.