The 2010 Japanese romance Ghost is one of those unusual films.
It’s not often that the Japanese remake a two-decade-old Hollywood movie.
But since the Hollywood film Ghost was one of the biggest hits of the 1990s and given the enduring resonance of young romance thwarted, perhaps the remake was justified.
Except in one crucial respect, the Japanese film Ghost hews closely to the English original.
In the Japanese version, it’s the girl who dies and ends up as a ghost protecting her lover from the bad elements that are set out to kill him.
The roles are reversed in the Hollywood original starring the late Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore and Whoopi Goldberg (Whoopi won the Best Supporting Actress for her role as the psychic).
Ghost – Nice Watch
When Nanami dies in a road accident, her husband Kim Juno (Seung-heon Song) is shattered.
They are recently married and, like most young couples, have great deal of affection for each other.
Juno, who hails from Korea, is a potter who makes attractive ceramic ware while Nanami is the CEO of a thriving Japanese company.
If Junoi is extremely distraught over the loss of his wife, Nanami is shattered over her tragic fate.
Yes, Nanami is extremely upset over her misfortune because although she’s physically dead she’s now ‘alive’ as a ghost who can see and hear everything in the real world.
This ability makes it all the more disturbing to Nanami because she soon realizes the true circumstances behind her death and the danger her dear Juno is in.
The rest of the film is about how Nanami’s Ghost protects Juno via a psychic and ultimately brings the bad persons to book.
The photography and lighting are pleasing as they usually are with movies made in Japan or South Korea.
Nanako Matsushima, who plays Nanami, is a charming, adorable actress who does a fine job.
Song Seung-Heon’s performance as the tender, loving husband is adequate.
Kirin Kiki renders a remarkably spirited performance as the fake psychic Unten, who suddenly develops real psychic powers.
SearchIndia.com recommends Ghost to all romantics.
Ghost is available for streaming on Netflix with English subtitles.
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I watched Ghost(1990) some months back and liked it. Nice dialogues and good performances especially by Whoopi Goldberg.
A malayalam movie Aayushkaalam (starring Jeryam, Mukesh and others) is a rip off of Ghost. The main story is the same but there are a lot of changes to the script. Here is the main storyline of Ayushkaalam.
Balakrishnan(Mukesh) is a heart patient who needs to urgently undergo a heart transplant. He receives the heart of an Aby Mathew(Jayram) who died moments ago in a road accident. After the operation however, Balakrishnan realizes that he can see and hear Aby’s ghost. Although frightened at first, he finally decides to hear Aby’s story. Aby reveals that his death wasn’t an accident but a cold blooded murder and that he needs Balakrishnan’s help to find out who his killer is. Both go to Aby’s house and Balakrishnan finally manages to convince Aby’s family. After a sequence of events, it’s finally revealed that Aby’s close friend Alex is the mastermind and that he killed Aby for his money.
I liked Ayushkalam when I watched it decades back. It’s got a wonderful song in it..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xo2U_R7ii5w&feature=related
But after watching Ghost, Aayushkalam turned out to be a few notches below Ghost in comparison. Although the remake portrayed the grief and anguish of Aby’s spirit and his wife and mother in a convincing manner, Ghost was a lot more entertaining with superior acting.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Un’f**king’believable.
Are there any Hollywood films that the Indian thieves have not filched? 🙁
I plan to see the Hollywood version Ghost one of these days, just for Whoopi (after all, she got the Oscar for her performance in this film).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoEwR9_Sy_M is another good thing about Ghost
SearchIndia.com Responds:
The song apart, the acting is a million times better in the Japanese version.
Neither the late Patrick Swayze nor Demi Moore can hold a candle to their Japanese counterparts – Nanako Matsushima and Song Seung-heon.
I’m going by the brief video in your above link.
Whoopie was the life of this movie. makes the film interesting
“Are there any Hollywood films that the Indian thieves have not filched?”
I don’t think so.
Any Indian movie that is good or watchable turns out to be a shameless copy..!! The few original movies they do make turn out to be disgusting garbage..!! Sad..!!
But after all, going by the response for Rowdy Rathore, Dabangg, Endhiran etc… this garbage is all what the nincompoops in India want..!!
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Very true, Indian movie-makers are making films for their audience, a billion plus troupe of baboons.
“I plan to see the Hollywood version Ghost one of these days”
I don’t remember much of Ghost but I guess you won’t be disappointed..!!
Btw, Dark Knight Rises is coming out on July 20.. any plans to re watch Dark Knight.??
I’m sure as well going to..!!
SearchIndia.com Responds:
You write: Btw, Dark Knight Rises is coming out on July 20.. any plans to re watch Dark Knight.??
Not really.
I’m tired of all these Ironman, Batman, Spiderman, Thor super-hero drivel that use special effects gimmickry to mask the absence of a plot/presence of the same plot.
Beaten to death or as Yogi Berra famously said, it’s déjà vu all over again.
Dark Knight was made tolerable only by Heath Ledger’s tour de force performance.
http://www.searchindia.com/2008/07/18/dark-knight-heath-ledgers-dazzling-swan-song
Off-topic:
Higgs Boson…Congratulations to CERN for the monumental discovery.
A piece of interesting news on this
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/article3602966.ece?homepage=true
” http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/large-hadron-collider/9381684/Higgs-boson-Whats-it-for-I-have-no-idea-says-Prof.html”
The above news is definitely worrying. Do billions of dollars/Euros ($4.75 billion for this research) needs to be poured in all the time for research like these just to expand our understanding at subatomic level especially when the whole Europe is in the cusp of economic collapse.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Is it worth spending $4.75 billion?
Well, it was spent over a decade and the Large Hadron Collider has been in the works for some time now:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2012/07/05/how-much-does-it-cost-to-find-a-higgs-boson/