Olenina said storytelling and visuals can differ depending on the culture from which they originated.Īmerican filmmakers generally cater to their audience through stories based on a single mission, whereas other countries may prefer to discuss philosophical themes and ambiguous psychological situations throughout their films, she said. "The Magnificent Seven" is a good movie in its own right, but is nigh unrecognizable as taking direct influences from "Seven Samurai," making it difficult to argue that the adaptation brought any new viewers to the original. Hollywood has a long history of Americanizing films, regardless of origin, from the Japanese film "Seven Samurai" being remade into "The Magnificent Seven," following the same story but set in the Wild West instead of feudal Japan. Typical to Western cinema, this includes an emphasis on a character's actions and their implications, which are generally driven by a certain goal, Olenina said. Olenina draws an example from the film "Solaris," a Soviet-era science fiction film that explores psychological and philosophical themes that were lost in the American version by the same name. It's natural for important themes to get lost in translation through remakes, but this comes at the expense of a director's intention for the film. "If people in the United States are just limiting themselves to watching American remakes, they are definitely losing out on a lot," she said. Why try to ruin train to busan by making a remake when y'all can just literally watch it with subtitles - haziq August 29, 2021Īna Hedberg Olenina, an assistant professor of comparative literature and media studies who also studies international cinema, said that watching international films introduces audiences to diverse voices, unique world views, and different cultures that can be lost through Western adaptations.