Let's take a look at Kollywood's several attempts in remaking foreign films

It’s a fact that stories can be narrated in only seven ways. Hence, every movie is an inspiration of one film or another. Kollywood is no different, as over the course of its history, there have been many movies that were inspired or ripped off from others.

Though we’ve been seeing filmmakers crediting the originals of late — for example Thoongavanam (original: Nuit Blanche) and the soon-to-be-released Kadhalum Kadanthu Pogum (Original: My Dear Desperado) — there have been movies that either failed to match the original script, or give it due credit. Let’s take a look at Kollywood’s several attempts in remaking foreign films.

Ever since the early 90s, when the likes of Jean-Claude Van Damme and Denzel Washington flourished as larger-than-life heroes in Hollywood action flicks, heroes like Arjun, Sarathkumar and Arun Pandian reprised those roles frequently. Given the success of Jai Hind, which is similar to The Dirty Dozen and Rambo, action king Arjun has gone on to remake cult films like Leon: The Professional into Surya Paarvai, and Man on Fire as Aanai, which were panned by critics. Even Sarathkumar’s Rishi (from The Killer) and Jaggubhai (from Wasabi) failed to live up to expectations.

Even when ‘Captain’ Vijayakanth decided to mark his debut as a director with Virudhagiri, he opted to remake Liam Neeson’s blockbuster movie Taken. But with songs, melodrama, over-the-top action scenes and poor dialogue, the movie is being trolled till date. The trend even followed with the next generation of heroes — Ajith Kumar’s Billa 2 took excerpts from Brian De Palma’s Al Pacino-starrer Scarface, and Vijay’s Puli infamously copied scenes from Brave Heart.

But, Kamal Haasan stands out among the other actors by finding the thin line between inspiration and blatant plagiarism. His films, including Avvai Shanmugi (Mrs. Doubt Fire), Nayagan (The Godfather) and Panchathanthiram (Very Bad Things) not only managed to match the original scripts, but also added new dimensions to them.

It’s quite surprising to note that even the most established directors have had heavy Hollywood inspiration in their careers. Mysskin, who is a well-known fan of Korean films made Nandalala, which was a remake of Kikujijro; Ameer Sultan’s Yogi was inspired from a South African movie Tsotsi. Ace director Maniratnam’s Anjali has similarities with Son-Rise: A Miracle of Love, while Roja seemed to have been inspired from Sunflower. And, of course, Murugadoss’ Ghajini can’t help but remind us of Memento.

Based on popular opinions, we find it’s rather unfortunate that there have been more misses than hits in our attempts to remake foreign films so far. But all’s not gloom and doom, as with the establishment of young talents Rajesh M Selva and Nalan Kumarasamy, we are seeing a welcome change, not only in terms of script and production value, but also due credit being given to the original filmmakers in the title cards!