Tag Archives: Remakes

East Meets West…

10 Asian Movies Remade by Hollywood:

http://entertainment.time.com/2013/12/05/east-meets-west-10-asian-movies-remade-by-hollywood/

Not to sound too full of myself (I know, I know…too late! 😉 ), but the main reason I checked the list out was to see how many of the features I already knew about…and, conversely, to see what might surprise me.

The one that wound up surprising me was entry #9, Il Mare, a film that was remade as…The Lake House.  I’ve always had a fondness for The Lake House, starring Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves, because it presents an intriguing romance pleasantly mixed with time travel/sci-fi elements.  Perhaps that’s the way I like romantic films: When they feature elements not usually associated with them (check out, for example, Grosse Point Blank, perhaps my favorite romantic comedy, a film that featured hit men!)

For those who don’t know about either Il Mare or The Lake House, the plot involves a man and woman who communicate with each other via mail left in a mailbox in front of the referred to lake house.  The two come to realize that they live in different times: the woman lives in the lake house in “the present” while the man occupied the same residence two years before.  As the film plays out, there are indications the man may have met his end in the interval.

The two develop a romantic attachment even as the present day woman tries to figure out what happened to this man.

No, the American film is far from perfect, but the charisma of the two leads and the intriguing story line made the film a pleasant diversion.  I’ll have to check out the original.