And to be honest I’m not entirely sure what with.
A third year girl has just come up to me and initiated a conversation in English about movies (hurrah good on her for practising her English during lunchtime!).
She told me she had seen Ring last night. She said it was scary. I wholeheartedly agreed, I first saw it when I was nineteen/twenty and it scared me shitless, she’s fourteen!
We had a nice discussion about the movie. She doesn’t want to answer the telephone today (and that sentence is a damn difficult one to construct when your first language isn’t English!)
Then she told me she liked watching movies with subtitles. Oh, says I, what movie with subtitles did you last watch? Ring she said.
This had me puzzled for a good while. I mean, I watched Ring in subtitles because I speak English…so I asked if her first language was not Japanese. Nope, she only speaks Japanese and a little English…thats why she had to watch with subtitles…now I admit I was slow on the uptake here. Perhaps it was the habit Japanese children have of dropping `the’s, perhaps its the fact that I refuse to admit the remake was anygood and periodically forget it (indeed I believe I have seen it but have it on good authority that I actually halucinated the entire way through the movie).
What this kid had seen was `The Ring’, the Hollywood version. She didn’t even know it was originally Japanese, let alone know about the original movie. Now to translate all this I had to grab a passing English teacher. The English teacher tried to tell me I was wrong. The Ring is a hollywood movie…yes The Ring is but Ring ISNT!!!! And its a damn fine movie.
Was I sure it was a good movie? Yes of course I was sure. Then I must have seen an American movie not a Japanese one. WHAT????!!!! At this point I was in danger of becoming an emotion foreigner and so tried to explain that there were several good Japanese movies that I had seen…but do I know the Japanese movie titles…do I heck as like. Dammmnit!
So I’m pissed off. Mostly with myself because I can’t remember the name of the director, production studios or when the movie was made so that the kid can go and rent the real version (assuming that shes not too young).
How can they be Japanese and believe a Japanese movie to be American? Not only that but how can they be Japanese and believe automatically that the American remake will be better?!?!?
And the kid’s probably too young for most of the Japanese movies I like.
Hi,
So I’m feeling helpful at the moment (might have something to do with being stuck in the house with swollen tonsils); have a look at the following url for full details on the Japanese film:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0178868/
(sadly I haven’t had the opportunity to see the film myself 🙁 )
All the best,
John
I’ve seen both movies and must admit that "Ringu" (I like to add a ‘u’ at the end of it to differentiate from "The Ring") was a better movie, and "The Ring" was scarier.
What Japanese films do you like anyway? Personally I’ve always been a fan of "Seven Samurai"
You found the American movie scarier vitamin angel? How come? I thought Ring was totally terrifying.
*Hugs* John
I watched seven samurai for the purposes of writing a short play set in Japan, once. I really didn’t get it in places, especially some of the jokes which I think must have been lost in the translation: "It’s not a horse; it’s a mouse!!"…
Yeah cross cultural references don’t translate too well do they?