Remake kings of kollywood

The new breed of emerging filmmakers in Kollywood is inspired by foreign films or just churning out Hindi film remakes. It’s crystal clear now. In the last one month, films successful at the box-office are all "inspired" or remakes. Digest this. Saroja (Judgment Night), Dhaam Dhoom (Red Corner), Nayagan and Vegam (Cellular), and Poi Solla Porom (Khosla Ka Ghosla). One of the big hits of this year Mysskin’s Anjathey is inspired heavily from Clint Eastwood’s Mystic River. The directors, who take the basic concept and re-work it to suit local taste are the winners. There is nothing really wrong in getting inspired, as long as you don’t make it a frame-toframe remake. It’s been happening over the years as our films are basically entertainers, and those who make adaptations from our books or literature have not been so successful. Is there one original scriptwriter in Kollywood?

Bollywood directors have been doing it with impunity since the 70s when Dirty Harry became Khoon Khoon or Irma la Deuce turned into Manoranjan. At one time, every Bollywood director was depending on foreign DVD's, with source material shifting from Hollywood to Korean, Japanese and Spanish films! Now the Bollywood DVD directors are not interested in doing a cut and paste job instead they are willing to buy the original rights and Indianise it to suit the local taste. Recently, one of the biggest copycats in Bollywood, Sanjay Gupta, who has ripped Reservoir Dogs into Kaante is now set to remake a French thriller of the 60’s, after buying the copyrights from the original director. Similarly the ‘Ustaads’ of rip-off's, Abbas-Mastan,whose every Hindi thriller can be traced to some Hollywood film, are now going the legitimate way by buying the rights of the 70s film The Italian Job to be made in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu!

Meanwhile, forthcoming Tamil movies are also heavily ‘inspired’ by foreign films or are remakes of Hindi films, which in turn are copies from Hollywood biggies! The trend catching up with our directors is that they are getting more educated, as they feel Korean, Mexican, Iranian and Japanese films are more native for Tamil audiences than Hollywood! A director who ripped of the basic plot of a Korean film, later said at a press meet that the “idea came to him from a real life incident that took place in a village near Madurai”. Another famous director making his acting debut as a hero, has sourced his basic storyline from an African movie he saw in an English movie channel. Our directors have realised that better than scouting around DVD shops, it is better to go for DTH connections as it offers a bouquet of movie channels. Watch out for more “real stories that happened in a village near Madurai!”