Is The Departed the first western remake of a HK film?


sorry if this has already been answered!

Of course not, just think of:
The Ring
Ju On - The Grudge
Il Mare
or even Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs is "related" to Ringo Lam's City On Fire
Just to name a few.

Ring and Ju-on are Japanese and Il Mare was a Korean film. I can't think of a specific Hong Kong movie that has been remade other than Departed. I guess Reservoir Dogs is about as close as you can get in terms of major influence.

You are absolutely right, my mistake, I was reading "asian movie"...

Nah, there are some strong parallels to support that similar competing 1993 plot devices with kidnap themes in both ‘The Kidnap of Wong Chak Fai’ (co-scripted by Wong Jing) and ‘Crime Story’ (co-scripted by Teddy Chan w/Jackie Chan starring) inspired Ron Howard’s ‘Ransom’ (starring Mel Gibson & Gary Sinise) 3 years later.

Ron Howards Ransom is a remake of '56 movie same title with Glenn Ford, Donna Reed and Leslie Nielsen.

Whoah, didn't see this reply till now. Thanks for the clarification Contrai. That is indeed the precedence but I only cited my titles because of the obvious parallels between the Gary Sinise and Kent Cheng's (twice!) characters. I know Kidnap plots are not uncommon - Stanley Jaffe's 'Without a Trace', Kurosawa's 'High & Low' and 'Night of the Juggler', etc.

I haven't seen the 1956 film but was there a cop character in the original plot that was imitated in the remake? If so, then the two HK titles lifted a most clever plot device before Ron Howard paid homage.

The west has been remaking Police Story for years now .

Reservoir Dogs is an uncreditted remake of City On Fire.

For Reservoir Dogs, I believe 'remake' is a big strong... 'Inspired by' is a better tag, I believe.

The opening scene in Police Story is copied idea for idea at the end of Bad Boys 2.

If we're just talking about Asian movies in general, Speed and The Bullet Train have incredibly strong parallels.

There's more, I'm sure, I just can't remember it now...

Last Man Standing (w/ Bruce Willis) is heavily "inspired" by Yojimbo.

mrblue wrote:Last Man Standing (w/ Bruce Willis) is heavily "inspired" by Yojimbo.

I don't know if I'd say "inspired" is right, since it gives writing credit to both Akira Kurosawa and Ryuzo Kikushima. It is in fact a remake. And, of course, Yojimbo is based on the American detective novel, Red Harvest. Well, maybe, they're very similar in plot. Still not an HK film though, in any case. But hey, I'll toss out another Japanese one - Blind Fury is a remake of Zatoichi Movies, especially Zatoichi Challenged.

Personally, I would call Reservoir Dogs a remake of City on Fire. It's not an exact remake, but it is close enough. From what I've read about the Departed (haven't seen it yet, have seen Infernal Affairs) it's about as accurate of a remake as Reservoir Dogs.