Note: Transcript fully created by automated AI
[00:00:00] Jesse Lin: Hi everyone. I’m Jesse Lin.
[00:00:01] Angela Lin: And I’m Angela Lin. Welcome back to another episode of, but Where are You really from? And today we have another mini for you. Mini. Uh, Yeah, we are discussing, is it homage or appropriation? We’re talking about movie adaptations, y’all. Um, and this is an interesting topic because the reason why it’s kind of top of mind for me at least, is uh, I don’t know if y’all have been watching The Money Heist Show that was recently redone.
For Korean audiences, but it was adapted from the like extremely popular Spanish show money heist. Uh, to be fair, Netflix owns the rights to both, so it’s like their decision if they wanted to do it, but part of me just like did not feel good seeing the trailer for the show because I. Loved the original money heist.
I’m obviously biased because Ramona’s Spanish, so he would like hype in, you know, he was like getting some pride from this Spanish show being like fucking huge. Like that thing won like Emmy’s and it was like, it was like huge. Yeah, it did. Um, And so when I watched the trailer for the Korean one, I think it just rubbed me the wrong way that it almost appeared like a mirror image copy of the show.
Mm. I know it’s not because I read up. I haven’t watched it to be fair. Um, but I read up on kind of like what the key differences are, and obviously it’s said in Korea, it’s not said in Spain. Wow. It’s actually a bunch of Koreans who fly to Spain and take over . No, it’s set in Korea and it, they obviously implement.
Korean specific things like there’s a North Korean versus South Korean history and dynamic. That’s like one of the main kind of underlying plots. in the trailer at least. I was like, okay, these characters are exactly the same thing. Like they’re the same names, which if anyone has watched Money Heist, you know, like, um, instead of using their real names, they all choose like city names, like Berlin and like Tokyo and whatever.
And part of me was like, couldn’t you have chosen other cities if you were really gonna do this? Like, why’d you have to like choose exactly the same names? And then they were like the same personal. . So it’s not, you know, it’s like, so it is exactly like a copy of the Spanish character. But Korean and I, I, again, I don’t know exactly if like everything was the same, but I remember seeing in the trailer you do see the encounter between the professor and Tokyo, like how he recruited her and it looked exactly the same as a Spanish scene.
Mm-hmm. . And I was like, I just don’t like this. So that’s why it’s top of mind for me. But we wanted to talk about in general, kind of movie, Adapta movie or show adaptations, where traditionally, a lot of times the way we’ve seen it is almost, it’s usually the other way around, right? It’s like a lot of Asian.
Films, it’s copied and TV shows are copied by Western media. Yeah. And, and kind of made into their thing. And is this homage or appropriation? That’s what we
[00:02:58] Jesse Lin: wanna talk. Good question. So, I mean, as you mentioned, there’s been like a huge history of Western cinema, basically just copying the exact film. So if you think about, I mean, Japanese horror has historically been like the place where people just copy.
The source material and like change it a little bit for the local audiences. I think there are like other films that people will take from as well. Um, a lot of the like or like kung fu stuff has been in certain TV shows and films has been poured over where it’s very clearly not a Eastern story necessarily.
It just has those particular elements. And I think for me, The difference between homage and appropriation is how original the new material is. So for example, when I think of the ring or the grudge, I really think that that’s appropriation because it’s not really that different from the source material.
It’s not better, it doesn’t introduce any originality into the original concept. It really just replaces the actors with like big box actors and maybe like better special effects and. Filming, framing, cinematography, whatever. But at the core of it, it’s essentially the same story with just like more bells and whistles and it’s not always better either.
Like I feel like the American version of the ring and the grudge was not really that much better than the Japanese version. I do like it when elements are used in original stories, so you have something that respects the history of. certain, um, filming elements came from, but incorporates it in a new, exciting way.
And I know we’ve talked everything everywhere, all once to death. But this, this is like a really great example of it because I think that Daniels really made use of Michelle Yo’s, like martial arts experience, built it into the film where it’s like really cool, somewhat referential. But it’s an interesting new story that’s not like a copy of anything.
It’s not stealing, it’s not like taking someone else’s original story and just like adding more lights and cameras and flashy effects. It’s something completely new. And I think for me, that’s the difference between homage, which pays, respects to certain elements that have been seen in film and TV prior versus appropriation, which is just like, it just a.
[00:05:31] Angela Lin: So based on the way you are discussing it, then it doesn’t really matter if it’s a Western film that’s, uh, copying an Asian film or the other way around. If it’s almost like the exact same story, then that’s
[00:05:44] Jesse Lin: appropriation. I think so, because like what value do you add to that story, that thought process?
That, that the cinema universe of whatever it is that you’re looking at, if.
[00:05:58] Angela Lin: Copying it to be totally fair. We just talked about largely like Asian films Sure. And TV shows that are appropriated by Western media. Uh, Asian people do the same thing because I like this up. Oh sure. And they’re like so many like Chinese and Korean shows and movies that are straight ripoffs of like American or other Western mm-hmm.
content. Mm-hmm. . So it’s not by any means us saying like, white people always taken that shit. It’s like, no, everyone to be taken, everyone’s shit. Hello. Hey listeners, wondering how you can support us? The biggest way is by increasing our visibility by following us on Instagram at Where are you from, pod on TikTok at, but where are you really from?
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Thanks y’all. Um, I think that largely historically, . The reason why this was done a lot and like okay, or like slid under the radar is that before our content wasn’t that globalized. I think it was a pre Netflix thing and a post Netflix thing of like when content wasn’t so easily accessible from all other regions, and people weren’t used to listening to dubs or reading subtitles.
They largely only watched their. Stuff. So like, especially Western audiences are so unused to watching like non-English speaking things that unless it was remade into English. And then of course, because it’s, if it’s into English, Hollywood has certain history of casting just white people. So then that, that goes into, into the mix.
Then like other, Western audiences may not watch it. Mm-hmm. versus now post parasite, post Netflix, introducing like content from literally everywhere and kind of forcing people to start getting used to dubs and subtitles. People are now open to watching stuff from everywhere and so my hope. Crystal balling in a little bit, is that moving forward this will happen less because you’ll be able to, um, convince people to watch like the original thing.
That’s a big thing. Yeah, but I guess I’m kind of like saying opposite things from what’s really happening because Money heist just happened. Like they literally released Morning High Korea one year after the end. The original muddy heist from Spain and both are from Netflix. So I guess it’s not always gonna go away, but like I’m hopeful that it’ll start kind of like screaming into like the original creators because people are used to global content.
[00:08:49] Jesse Lin: Yeah, I think it’ll be really great if you viewed the remake to view the original, and I think the word appropriation is kind of. Funny because for me it’s a little tricky to explain how I feel about it. Cuz I feel like the, the Ring movies, it’s definitely appropriation because I think they took the material and like I think the original writers, some of them might have been paid, but basically they kind of like ripped it off.
And like they changed some elements of the story where the horror is not explained quite the same way as the original film. And so you like lose some of the origin of that story in service of making it palatable for a lot of people. So you’re kind of like, There’s like some cultural elements of Japanese horror, right?
You’re taking that and you’re watering it down so that more people can understand it. But in doing so, you remove some of the original meaning in a sense or some of the elements of horror, and I think that that’s appropriation because you’re not capturing that the same way. You’re just trying to get it to as many people as possible to profit off.
which is, you know, like for a lot of stuff that’s, that’s completely fine if you want to do that. But, um, I think if you’re talking about like really great cinema, it’s always for me been like, not a copy. It’s like you have some reference material origination material and you incorporate that into something that’s, um, newly creative rather than stealing.
[00:10:22] Angela Lin: I think this is all subjective though, in a way though, because, um, creative liberty can be interpreted in many different ways, right? Like you’re saying, and I agree with you that there’s like very specific things to Japanese culture that can’t translate. So then they kind of just cut it out. Um, similarly, because Money Heights is what I started talking about, it’s like, Yeah.
Well, you can argue that a lot of the Spanish context is gone because it’s literally not in Spain anymore. Mm-hmm. , it’s not Spanish people. Mm-hmm. , now it’s Korean. So it’s, it’s like, well, why is one scene as like, okay, and one’s not okay. Mm-hmm. . And then the other thing I, I just remembered is I looked this up before and I think.
Part of the reason why these adaptations have been like pretty common in the last several decades is because there is no real international copyright law . Oh. Like there supposedly is, but not really. Like, it’s really hard to enforce. So it’s kind of like within your country that you produce the thing, there’s definite copyright protection, and then once you like ex, you know, once you’re outside that country, it’s too gray.
I see. All right. Moving into close. We wanna hear from you guys, so drop us a comment and tell us what is your either favorite or like most horrible adaptation in your mind. It can either be Western copying Asian shit, or the other way around, or whatever thing we’ve left off. Let us know what is the worst offender or your favorite.
Think it’s actually better than the original hot
[00:11:52] Jesse Lin: tea. We wanna see fights in the comments section. ?
[00:11:56] Angela Lin: Yes. And let us know what you think of, like what exactly is the difference between ho, homage, homage and appropriation?
[00:12:02] Jesse Lin: Appropriation. Oh,
[00:12:03] Angela Lin: appropriation. Yeah. Whoops. Um, yeah. Homage or appropriation because I think it’s a fun line.
Creative subjectivity, blah, blah, blah. There’s definitely blah, blah. Yeah. Maybe you have a strong opinion. So let us know in the comments.
[00:12:16] Jesse Lin: As always, come back next week for a. Hop in hippity. Hop in episode from us.