I'm doing research on transnational remakes and parodies of American films (following up on Pete Tombs' magnificent work in Mondo Macabro), looking at films like Turist Omer Uzay Yolunda (the Turkish Star Trek), James Batman (parody of James Bond and Batman made in the Phillipines), and B. Gupta's Indian 'Superman' film.

I was wondering if anyone on Mobius had any English language resources on these films, or could recommend films that might be relevant to my study?

Thanks in advance, I've been an avid reader of the Mobius boards and feel this could be the one place on the net where I'd find people with knowledge of this fascinating area of cinema!

Iain,

Welcome to the board! I'm sure you will get lots of help here. One great area of study for transnational remakes is the work of Italian exploitation filmmaker Bruno Mattei. Some of his films are nearly scene for scene remakes of their sources that sometimes use the exact same dialogue. Here are some good examples with the films they mirror in parenthesis:

-ROBOWAR (PREDATOR with a bit of ROBOCOP)
-SHOCKING DARK (ALIENS with a bit of THE TERMINATOR)
-CRUEL JAWS (JAWS; this actually uses footage from JAWS 1 & 2 and the JAWS ripoff GREAT WHITE)
-SNUFF TRAP (8MM)
-STRIKE COMMANDO (RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD pt. II)

EDIT: Films from India are also a great source. For instance, a few years ago I saw an Indian remake of FACE/OFF. There is also an Indian remake of RESERVIOR DOGS titled KAANTE. And I believe there is one for FIGHT CLUB.

Thanks William, those are some great suggestions and definitely the type of film I am looking at.

I received the Onar release of 3 Dev Adam today which is of course perfect for my research, has english subtitles and even features interviews with the director and 2 cast members!

I shall try to track down those Bruno Mattei films. I'm unsure yet whether to include Italian cinema or to focus more specifically on Third World countries, but I'm sure the films will be worth seeing either way.

You probably already know about this one, but just in case:

http://www.hkflix.com/xq/asp/filmID.537479/qx/details.htm

This Argentinian fan short is listed at the IMDB, so maybe it had some kind of release:

http://xoomer.virgilio.it/amasoni2002/shl/...lado_(2002).htm

You will definitely want to look at recent Bollywood films. The Bollywood FIGHT CLUB is called...FIGHT CLUB. Heck, they even left the title!

A website which I cannot find at the moment was creating a comprehensive Bollywood/Hollywood rip-off list. It was quite large. Some I don't agree with, judging some films to be "inspired by" rather than shamelessly stealing. If I find the link, I'll post it here. (In the meantime, there's CHOCOLATE, a remake of THE USUAL SUSPECTS, and SARKAR, the bollywood GODFATHER.

[UPDATE: Here is the link: www.bollycat.com. That ought to keep you busy!!!]

A couple HK movies off the top of my head would be TWINKLE TWINKLE LITTLE STAR, a Shaw Bros movie with lots of STAR WARS parody moments; THE REPLACEMENT SUSPECTS, a rip off of ALBINO ALLIGATOR; SKY OF LOVE, a remake of the Korean film DITTO which was surely inspired by the Hollywood movie FREQUENCY.

And etc, etc,...

-- Peter

Turkey and India both produced an astonishing number of direct remake/rip-offs of American product. There are Turkish versions of EXORCIST, WIZARD OF OZ, ROCKY, BITTER RICE, ONE EYED JACKS, as well as versions of FLASH GORDON, CAPTAIN AMERICA, SUPERMAN... the list goes on and on. Mondo Macabro's DEATHLESS DEVIL is actually a remake of the serial MYSTERIOUS DR. SATAN. You should also get the KILINK DVDs from Onar - Atadeniz borrows plot points and characters from Superman and Captain Marvel.

In India - geez, the number is endless. Look for films by Mahesh Bhatt (I think that's his name). He's constantly remaking American thrillers. RAAZ is a remake of WHAT LIES BENEATH. There's a version of OLD BOY out there already! SAANGHARSH (sp?) is SILENCE OF THE LAMBS.

Most of the Indian "thrillers" are actually more watered down than the American product, so while the first 2 or 3 seem novel, the viewer quickly numbs to them once the novelty wears off.

Feel free to e-mail me and I'll try to point you in some direction. I was obsessed with collecting films like this not so long ago. I wrote about that JAMES BATMAN film you mention for Video Watchdog. It's one of my favorites and I have quite a few Batman knock-offs.

D.