2005 Winter - Intro - Hideo Nakata - Roy Lee - Koji Suzuki - Horror on the Horizon
J-horror Looms over Hollywood
portraits by Tadayuki Naito
When movie theaters across America tallied their box office earnings after one weekend this past October, the big winner was the opening of The Grudge. It pulled in $40 million, four times what it cost to make. Japanese audiences would recognize this scary story, for in fact it is director Takashi Shimizu's remake of his own Ju-on, which opened in Japan in 2003.
How did his terrifying film gain such a fast following in the U.S.? There's more to the answer than the fact that it debuted just before Halloween, the traditional celebration of spooks and all things spectral. Indeed it follows on the heels of another phenomenal success in the U.S.: The Ring, the 2002 remake of Hideo Nakata's 1998 thriller Ringu, convinced Hollywood just how profitable Japanese horror movies can be. This popularity with audiences and movie pros has ignited a new trend—remaking Japanese horror films—and spawned a new genre in the American film industry, what many now refer to now simply as "J-horror."
More remakes of J-horror thrillers are in the pipeline. Robert De Niro is producing Dark Water, planned for release in spring 2005, and currently scheduled for production are such titles as Don't Look Up (remake of Joyu-rei), Chaos (starring De Niro), Kansen (Infection), and Yogen (Prophecy).
What's behind this fascination with J-horror? Certainly, the appeal of the stories is likely to be found in their cultural and historical background unique to Japan. But to uncover the full answer, we interviewed the three key people credited with creating the trend.
Director Hideo Nakata of Ringu fame has many other Japanese horror thrillers that have been or will be remade in the U.S., including Ring 2, due for release in March 2005. Movie producer Roy Lee serves as matchmaker between Japanese horror film-makers and their Hollywood counterparts; he's behind the deals bringing such films as the Ring series, The Grudge, and Dark Water to the U.S. market. (Lee is also voraciously introducing films from other parts of Asia such as Korea and Hong Kong.) Author Koji Suzuki, known as the Stephen King of Japan, wrote the 1989 novel Ringu, which spawned the Ring films.
Here's what they told us.
Articles from the 2005 WINTER issue:
Kateigaho International Edition Issues:
2005 SUMMER - 2005 SPRING - 2005 WINTER
2004 AUTUMN - 2004 SUMMER - 2004 SPRING - 2004 WINTER
2003 AUTUMN - INAUGURAL ISSUE
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