Meant to reply to you, but it's still down there.

Well put. Zero interest.

Spielberg^ yikes I'm a fuck up

I agree that The Departed was a far better film than Infernal Affairs, but I like the original Ring better. I saw the original first in both cases, but I think it only made a difference because of The Ring's genre. I also agree that this could be okay, though I really really liked the original. Furthermore, I respect your opinion.

Yeah, I'm not really sold by all the "this is a remake that didn't need to happen" rabble, because it's inevitably latched onto by people who don't seem to think that ANY remake needs to happen.

I'm sorry, but if you can't see the value of a Korean vengeance thriller through the perspective of the director who did Do the Right Thing, I genuinely don't believe you think any remake is worth watching. I don't care how many times the ending was spoiled for you.

"The Departed"

Hahaha, no, between DiCaprio's awful overacting, and Nicholson doing a parody of himself the movie is just not memorable at all. The useless love triangle didn't help at all.

The better the film is, the less it needs to be remade, and the more the studios want to remake it. I'm amazed we haven't had a Casablanca remake yet.

I won't be as pompous, but I otherwise agree with Riskbreaker. I liked The Departed, but I thought Infernal Affairs was the better movie. Although, I watched and loved Infernal Affairs long before The Departed was even announced, so that may colour my perception of the two.

The Departed was terrible. There I said it. They couldn't even use a good non-fucking-live-at-Berlin Pink Floyd song. I liked the American Ring better than the Japanese one though becas.

Oldboy the movie was already a hacked-up remake of a Japanese manga, so I'm not against the remake in of itself. Color me mildly curious.

There are several reasons why people (rightfully) find these particular remakes distasteful, especially when the thing being remade in question is barely 10 years old. The artist who braves out trying an idea first inherits all the risk, while the artist who does the remake risks nothing while comfortably utilizing hindsight to reap rewards. A homage is at least tasteful. A remake of something a couple decades old is at least forced to put its own twist or style to the production to the point of being almost a completely different movie (The Thing, for example). This isn't a homage, it's repackaging the same damned movie because they think audiences don't know what the Internet is. It's riding off of the coat tails of someone else's risk...and from a creative view point, it's fucking cheap and foul.

Spike Lee is -presumably- going to make a major American movie with incest in it. It doesn't matter if Park Chan-Wook did it first. That's a fucking risk.

Worked for Roman Polans--- oh. Point taken!

Departed sucked!

sosage: So what is the magical number of years that must pass before a remake can be considered creatively challenging?

I'm assuming you're going to say more than ten years? So how exactly does that compare when you consider that the source material manga for Oldboy was made only 5 years before the movie?

Please let me in on the finer points of this rigid quantitative system you have for deciding what is or isn't creative.

The manga isn't much like the movie though. You could tell there was a singular vision in the movie that wasn't in the manga. This is practically a shot-by-shot remake.

I mean, the trailer would have you believe this is a shot-by-shot remake, but I've seen a good amount of deviation from the original film from this two and a half minutes alone -- the female "assistant" of the antagonist mentioned below is an example of something that wasn't in the Oldboy movie, but was in the manga.

I haven't seen the original film. I will do the right thing and judge this work upon its own merits.

the female bodyguard was definitely in the original manga, Spike Lee didn't just Snyderize her out of thin air.

but no incest

I love Spike Lee. Do the Right Thing is in my top 10. I hate how the haters put down Spike Lee and accuse him of racism when the only Spike Lee they've seen is Family Guy's parody of his stuff.
They praised that half assed shit The Departed and are ready to dump on this. fuck them.

Nope.. It's crap