Monday, February 26, 2007

No credit for Hong Kong directors

It's just great that Hollywood buys the rights to a Hong Kong movie (Infernal Affairs), copies the whole thing, and Martin Scorcese actually wins an Oscar for his "directing". Come on... the article doesn't even mention the fact that this was "based" on a HONG KONG movie.

It's just typical that during the Oscars someone referenced The Departed as being based on a JAPANESE film.

The Depa'ted (Bawston accent) was OK, but Infernal was much betta'. The Depa'ted was fun ta' watch cuz of all the townie accents from Matt Damon and Mark Wahlberg. DiCaprio couldn't keep his accent during all scenes, and neither could his girlfriend in the movie.

Where I did find the word Hong Kong mentioned, it was kind of annoying and almost offensive:
The screenwriter for The Departed, named William Monahan, claims he never watched Infernal Affairs. In an interview:
"How did you end up turning the Hong Kong action thriller Infernal Affairs into The Departed? "
Response: "Brad Pitt's production company owned the remake rights, and I had a meeting with him. I said I would do it if I could set it in Boston. I made a point of not watching the original movie. Culturally, the films couldn't be more different. You couldn't do some of the stuff in a land where they have the Bill of Rights."
Anyone care to comment on this statement? Hong Kong has no rights at all, it's just like China right? NOT.

After I wrote this, I found this article which makes reference to some of what I'm feeling (but does it in a less biased way), - how the glory of a Hong Kong film was stolen and rebranded a Hollywood sensation with the namebrand cast and director to boot.

1 comment:

cosmicd said...

See NYTimes review on The Departed. It mentioned Infernal Affairs and said that Tony and Andy did a better job than Leo et al.