Definitely may-vie (kill me)

2005-02-07

Definitely may-vie (kill me)

The Ring was as we all know based on a Japanese movie called Ringu (『リング』). When it came time to show the American version in Japanese theatres, there was no title clash, because the new version has "the" in it. So many a Japanese person went and saw Za Ringu (『ザ・リング』) and everybody was happy, especially the distributors.

Now there is a new remake of a Japanese movie. The original is called 『呪怨』 (Juon, which means "Grudge"). The remake is called The Grudge. But, problem: "grudge" is not exactly in the top 100 most commonly used English vocabulary list, and it also doesn't katakanify very well (I think you'd get gurajji, and that just sounds too much like a made-up Tibetan word for "spirit-energy").

What to do? Simple: copy the Ring-bearers, and add "the" to the original Japanese title! And so 『THE JUON／呪怨』 is coming soon to a theatre near me, and the pattern has been set.

(I love the picture at the bottom of that page, incidentally, where it looks like the creepy crawling girl is holding floor plans. Floor plans... of unthinkable terror! Not even Feng Shui can save you now!)

Popularity factor: 5

Patrick:

Hahaha. Oh my god, that is funny. They're so bright and colorful, too. And what the hell is that? You click on different parts of the room to see what happened/happens in that room? The physical layout of the house didn't really play a very big part in the movie. So confusing!

By the way, if you haven't seen it - don't get too excited. Arbitrary horror! Nonsensical scares! Unexplained creepiness! You are in for a treat.

Matt:

I saw the original, and it was pretty damn creepy, if barely explained. I liked the time-skipping structure because it let them pull off some Lovecraftian "all of a sudden you realise how unspeakably monstrous it's been all along" stuff.

Juon 2 was less scary. I think the crawling wig jumped the shark.

Ali:

They should create a movie where The Forces of Evil are defeated by Feng Shui.

Anonymous:

(I think you'd get gurajji, and that just sounds too much like a made-up Tibetan word for "spirit-energy").Hmmm... གུ་རཇ་ཇི་? Yeah, I think that's how it'd go. A real Tibetan word probably wouldn't be spelled that regularly, but I don't know enough to fake it. (This year I'll get that Tibetan textbook...)

-- Tim May

Matt:

Ahaha, that would be awesome, Ali. "No! Don't put that mirror there! You'll -- AARGHGHHARGH!!"

And don't forget the pulse-pounding race against time to get the octagonal fishbowl in the north-east corner before it's too late.

Tim: Yeah, and the correct romanised orthography would be BA GA/GA/RA/U JA/SA/JA/JA SA/I BA/I or something horrendous like that.,

2005-02-07