I don't know if it has ever happened to you that you have seen a film and 98% of it is a copy of a film you have seen before.
The photomontage is my responsibility, these being the sources: Source, Source.
This is where a remake comes into play: a work that is faithful to the original film. Often remakes are unnecessary, such as Straw Dogs, The Karate Kid, Funny Games, Old Boy, Psycho or Total Recall. They are either unnecessary films, because they are too little time after the release of the original work, or they are the product of the greed of production companies that want to get more money from the public, or they are simply bad films that try to copy the original without achieving the same success.
I have seen a French film called Coupez! or Final Cut (2022) by the French director Michel Hazanavicius (winner of an Oscar as best director for the film The Artist). I found it nice, and with a message of love for people who make films with love, just because they like it and it's their passion. If you haven't seen the film One Cut of the Dead (2017) by Shin'ichirō Ueda, this film will surprise you, but if you have seen it, the message of this remake manages to be diluted and what should surprise you only seems a mimicry of what the original film conveys.
The plot is very simple and practically the same in both films: A film crew must make a Zombie film, but suddenly when they are filming it they are attacked by real zombies that woke up because of an old curse that weighs on the land where they are filming, the director obsessed with making realistic films shoots the zombie attacks.
The atmosphere of the film and its locations place us in a film that is not a Z film but a ZZZ film, with a very low budget and with unconvincing actors in their roles, very overacted.
We see the young star, the manic director, the make-up artist who practices strange martial arts, and strange zombies who seem to have green make-up. There is some very strange dialogue and stares lost on the horizon.
Only 38 minutes into the film, we begin to understand the true intention of the author of this film: meta-cinema.
One Cut of the Dead:
[Source](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLzXGzHTado)Final Cut:
[Source](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqNXTLg3r4c)Here the film is already self-aware and presents a discourse about what is filmmaking within filmmaking, and shows us how these people who work to make a film happen go through hilarious and amusing adventures to make a film, which can be extrapolated to a big budget film, an independent film, an auteur film or a Z-film.
In the end, the film is an example of how to make a film with few resources and pure intelligence.
All well and good, but it turns out that the original work is much more fun, perhaps because of the surprise factor of a film that I thought was about zombies in the Z-film style and that suddenly takes a turn by showing us a love letter to cinema in general.
In both films it is possible to appreciate what is a sequence shot, a frame, tracking, what is a crane and a Dolly camera.
The French remake will be very original to those who didn't see the Japanese film, there are very subtle changes but we are really watching the same film only in French language and with other actors.
Coupez! It is an imitation, very well intentioned, that transmits exactly the same as the original film, but I feel that as time goes by I will always remember the Japanese film.
It is recommended if you want to see a good remake and you don't know the original work, but if you have seen the Japanese film I consider Coupez! to be an unnecessary remake.
A pleasure to have shared with you my impression about this film, until a next opportunity
Posted using CineTV