Thursday Movie Picks: Movies Adapted from Other Movies Into a Different Language

For the 21st week of 2019 as part of Wandering Through the Shelves' Thursday Movie Picks. We go into the subject of films adapted from other films in a different language as it’s often common that Hollywood would take a well-received film from a different country and then translate into English and into a Hollywood spectacle where it can work at times but most of the time. They’re just total shit. Here are my three picks:

1. A Simple Noodle Story

From Zhang Yimou is an odd remake of the Coen Brothers’ debut film Blood Simple as it is set in Ancient China that involves a noodle shop owner who hires a corrupt cop to kill his wife and her lover who is also the cook at the noodle shop. It’s a visually-stylish film as it has some nice moments but it has a weird subplot involving two men trying to take break into their bosses’ vault over payment. It’s one of Yimou’s weaker films but it is worth watching for anyone interested in Yimou and the Coen Brothers.

2. Let Me In

A remake of the 2008 Tomas Alfredson film Let the Right One In by Matt Reeves is a decent film mainly due to the performances of Chloe Grace Moretz and Kodi Smit-McPhee. It is quite faithful though it doesn't do enough to bring in the scares while it also play too much into the many conventions of horror and such in this story of a troubled young boy who meets a young vampire.

3. Funny Games

Michael Haneke’s 2007 remake of his 1997 film is probably one of the strangest remakes ever produced on film. There aren’t many big differences between the original and the remake other than the actors and language while the 2007 version is a bit more on the nose for anyone that had seen the original 1997 film. It’s a simple home invasion movie where a family meet these two young men who ask for eggs and awful shit happen while one of the young men asks the audience what they should do.

© thevoid99 2019