In the film industry, remakes and adaptations of films are the order of the day. Japanese films are remade in South Korea, South Korean films are remade in Taiwan, Hollywood films are remade in India, and so on.

The Hallyu wave has swept the world in recent years, especially since the beginning of 2010. K-dramas or K-movies are loved by at least one in four people. Hollywood studio executives have been interested in South Korean films because of their extraordinary stories and growing popularity. As a result, viewers are increasingly drawn to movies with subtitles.

The 2016 zombie apocalypse movie Train to Busan, which garnered a global audience, is getting a Hollywood remake titled "Last Train to New York" The announcement infuriated fans, both foreign and Korean fans. Their discontent stems mainly from Hollywood's history of appropriating cultural content and whitewashing foreign films under the guise of admiration.

A Hollywood version of the Oscar-winning film Parasite was also announced. Fans were not the only ones offended; there was also a huge online backlash against it. As the filmmaker Bong Joon-Ho so eloquently put it, "You will be introduced to so many more amazing films once you overcome the one-inch-tall barrier of subtitles."

Cons of Remakes:

The biggest disadvantage of remakes, according to fans, is that the original essence of the movie is lost in translation. Hollywood has been feeding audiences a banal, simplified version of a commercial movie for years, appealing to unsophisticated minds who don't want to go to the trouble of reading subtitles to see a higher-quality movie.

While Hollywood films focus on a specific theme and its progression, South Korean films are known for their raw, gruesome, mysterious, and unexpected twists. This unpredictability is what sets South Korean films apart from other film genres.

The idea of whitewashing the entire movie to please the white population is also a topic of discussion among fans. Remember Dragonball Z: The Evolution and Godzilla, the live-action movie? Both had predominantly white casts after being taken over by the Japanese entertainment industry. In the recent live-action adaptation of One Piece, there is only one Asian among the entire cast, including the supporting characters.

Pros of Remakes:

The only people who benefit from these remakes are those who find watching subtitles to be tedious and are solely used to seeing English-language films. It does give them an idea of what the original film is about, and some of them might try to see it, as many new One Piece fans did after viewing the live-action version on Netflix. They looked through and binge-watched the Japanese series from 1999.

Based on the global success of the original, the economic model of these remakes appears promising in terms of drawing a sizable audience. Critics of the remake could simply see it for the sake of schadenfreude and the opportunity to sabotage it, which subtly advances the film's goal of becoming a box office hit.

As long as the global film industry produces adaptations of foreign films, the controversy over remakes of feature films will continue. For a successful adaptation, it is important to find a balance between the new storyline additions and the mood of the original film. The goal is to evoke strong feelings from both fans who already know the movie and new viewers who are seeing it for the first time. Whether you like or dislike remakes is an individual decision.

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