Be it Zinda, Ek Villain, Murder 2 or Rocky Handsome, filmmakers over the years have Indianised some popular Korean movies dealing with darkness and gore to come up with hit Bollywood remakes. Sangeeta Yadav speaks with film analysts and actors who tell you about this latest trend in the industry
From Sanjay Gupta’s Zinda (adaption of Oldboy), Mohit Suri’s Ek Villain (adapted from I Saw The Devil) to Mahesh Bhatt’s Murder 2 (adapted fromChaser), filmmakers down the last decade have come up dark and gory films that have been inspired from Korean cinema and the latest to join the list is Rocky Handsome, which is adapted from super hit Korean film, The Man From Nowhere.
What makes this movie special is its director Nishikant Kamat, the man behind the remakes of Telugu films Force and Drishyam plays a villainous Goan ganglord in this movie. Interestingly, he stepped in when the actor roped in for the role backed out. For Rocky Handsome, Kamat has adapted it scene-by-scene; it has just been tailored for Indian taste.
Korean movies are based on mind-games and this is what’s pulling the filmmakers into adapting them for Bollywood. Actor Sharad Kelkar, who plays a brainy yet shrewd character in the movie tells you: “I play a cop in this movie who is curious to know who this mysterious man (Rocky) is. He takes certain things personally and is determined to hunt him down. The biggest challenge for me was to not get intimidated by the actor who has done the original film. I wanted to portray it in my own style. So I watched the original movie to just grasp the story.”
Film critic Derek Bose feels that what makes South Korean films popular is that they are technically very well done, better than the Indian treatment for this genre. “It’s in the past few years that we have seen dark and gory films adapted from South Korean cinema. It’s a very difficult genre to deal with. Sometimes the movie doesn’t do well at the box office because the story has loose ends and is not well thoughtout from the Indian perspective,” Bose says.
Indian filmmakers are moving from West to East to adapt movies. Where western movies are known for their CGI, Korean and other films from the East are famous for their action and violence. “Korean filmmakers use human bodies and emotions as their center play. Their movies make sure that they properly utilise human abilities. From the kind of weapons they use, to the action sequences they direct, everything is well planned and actors train themselves to make it look larger than life. They glorify the fighting scenes, but the only difference is that Koreans keep it more realistic and they believe in traditional styles of fighting,” Raghav Bhatia, movie critic at Being Bhatia tells you.
Korean films are known for extreme level of violence and bloodshed which can hardly be tolerated by the Indian audience. When any director makes a Bollywood remake of those films, they Indianise it by showing less violence. “For instance, in Zinda, there is a scene where Sanjay Dutt cuts his vein but it was censored due to the level of violence. In the original, the climax saw a character cutting his tongue,” Bhatia points out.
The dialogues and punchlines are as powerful as their action. “There is a famous dialogue in the movie The Man From Nowhere which is very impactful ‘The ones who live for tomorrow get screwed up by the ones living for today. I only live for today and I will show you how screwed-up I can be.’ If you see the trailers of Rocky Handsome, the makers used the same dialogue as its punchline ‘Kal ki baat karne waala kal nahi marta. Kal ki baat karne waala aaj marta hai, sirf aaj ki sochne waale ke haathon se. Aur main sirf aaj ki sochta hoon’.
To make a well-adapted movie, one has to keep in mind the cultural differences. Incest is one area where filmmakers have to play smart. “While adapting movies, one has to ensure that it suits the country and their culture. For instance the director of Zinda knew that the Indian audience would never approve of the concept of incest and thus, the story was modified,” Bhatia explains.
Filmmakers try to cash in on strong emotions as well. When John Abraham showed the original Korean film to Kamat, he insisted on giving his own treatment to the climax.
“There is a very emotional scene at the end when the cops come to arrest Rocky. He goes to a store, buys a bag full of goodies and gives it to the girl. Both have a long emotional discourse; this will surely bring tears to your eyes,” Bhatia tells you.