88 posts tagged “adaptation”

The stories are different enough that one could not accuse the Hong Kong film-makers of outright copying, but there is clear inspiration between the English Ooh, You Are Awful (or Get Charlie Tully), starring Dick Emery, and the first of the successful franchise 最佳拍檔 (Aces Go Places). The films are 10 years apart.
   The plot lines are similar: in the original, Emery has to find a Swiss bank account number, separately tattooed on four different girls’ behinds. In the later film, Sam Hui (the father of Canto-pop) and Karl Maka’s characters have to find a map reference, tattooed on two different girls’ behinds. The following is of two very similar scenes, one set at Waterloo Station in London, the other at a taxi company’s radio department, and subsequent scenes involving photographic booths, where one might be able to claim there was a fair amount of direct copying. Emery is more blue, while the later film is more slapstick with better pacing.
   And yes, that is the lovely Cheryl Kennedy in the first clip.
   In the 1970s and 1980s, it was highly unlikely for Hong Kong cinemagoers to have seen the Emery film.
   Head to 2.45 for the above scene in the first video; 0.43 in the second clip.

I’m having a hard time envisaging the New Zealand version of The Apprentice.
   I rather like the UK version of the show (above). Sir Alan Sugar gives a very different style to Donald Trump, and I hope we Kiwis will give our own take.
   The issue I have with the American edition is that the tasks are somewhere between seventh form and first-year uni in terms of complexity, yet egomaniacs who are not used to getting on with one another fail dismally at them. (This is me generalizing and I specifically exclude at least one friend who has been on this show. And I imagine I have just stated the formula behind the programmes.) All these years, I felt smug about how much better Kiwis—who celebrate teamwork more than individuality—would do given the tasks.
   Now my fears are coming to the surface for one reason: what if we suck just as badly? What if the folks who go on the show are picked because of some level of narcissism and the esprit de corps that Kiwis have as a default behaviour takes a back seat? And then, to make it worse, first-year B-school students think that being an uncooperative moron is de rigueur in the business world?
   And providing these guys are not hired for more than 90 days, I suppose the Kiwi Don will be able to say, ‘You’re fired,’ instead of, ‘We need to go into a consultation regarding your dismissal while you have a right to lodge a complaint with the Employment Tribunal,’ or whatever crap we are supposed to say as bosses.
   So, who will be our Donald? Thérèsa Gattung? C. Rankin? My former economics’ classmate Sir Bob Jones?
   My friend David suggested that Rob Muldoon, if he were not dead, would have been perfect for the role.
   We effectively need a rich guy who is cutting, and chances are the producers will want a white male as well. When I go through the potentials in my mind, there’s not a single person I am afraid of, or think, ‘I would feel intimidated in a meeting with him.’
   One of the few rich guys I admire in this country is Peter Jackson, but I can’t see him being enough of an ass to front this sort of show.
   Any former All Blacks at the top of the financial tree who could at least intimidate a few young Kiwis? Someone who can deliver some politically incorrect comments (which comes back to Sir Bob)? Or a big McDonald’s franchise holder who can assign losers to work on the chips with the phrase, ‘You’re fried’?

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This is amazing (found via Petrolheed on Twitter). Forget Susan Boyle, Ukraine’s Got Talent in the form of Kseniya Simonova.

Just to show that Brits remake American shows, too, and do just as lousy job of it as Americans do when UK shows cross the Atlantic. Anyone old enough to remember The Fosters, co-starring Lenny Henry as Sonny Foster?
   Click here to see a clip at TV Ark.
   It’s British Good Times, and Henry was in the J. J. Evans equivalent role played by Jimmy Walker, but it was less gritty.
   Equally forgettable were The Upper Hand (British Who’s the Boss?) and Married for Life (British Married with Children). The former I have featured on this blog because it did have its fans (Pussy Galore was in it); the latter is so bad that I could only find a single clip on YouTube:

Yep, bad.
   If you are going to remake shows, maybe the Russians do it a bit better:

Remember how fans of Life on Mars were putting together their favourite Gene Genie moments on to YouTube? The Spanish seem equally fond of their Gene Hunt, Inspector Jefe Quin Gallardo, in La chica de ayer, Spanish Life on Mars.

Despite fairly healthy viewing figures, Antena 3 will not commission a second series of La chica de ayer. A member of the Railway Arms discussion board said two endings were filmed in case there was not a renewal. The aired finalé was quite good and certainly better than the American one that left me and a few others thinking it was a cruel April Fool’s joke.
   It was a remake of the eighth UK episode. Samuel saves Ana from being killed by his father, José, and lets him go. Unlike the original, Samuel does not prevent his younger self from seeing part of the attack, but steps in and intervenes. José is let go in similar circumstances to the original, but the ending is quite apt given the title (which translates to yesterday’s girl). Samuel’s mother, Rosa, has to tell his younger self a similar white lie to the original about his father’s disappearance (Ernesto Alterio does a touching scene in the foreground, remembering what his mother told him, as her explanation takes place simultaneously in the background).
   Where the series departs is that Samuel and Ana finally kiss in this episode. As the relationship between Samuel and Ana had developed more quickly in the Spanish series than in either the UK original or US remake, this seems well timed. Samuel sees the light at the end of the tunnel, literally, which could take him back to 2009. His purpose of being in 1977, it seems, is to save Ana’s life. (It is not explained if he is in a coma or if there is some cosmic force that sent him back in time.) He wishes to take Ana through, but she opts to stay. As she walks away, the light goes off, but we then see Samuel run to her, choosing to stay in 1977 with Ana.

If we don’t have any more Journeyman, maybe we can get our fix through the very similar The Time Traveler’s Wife, a movie version of the top-selling novel, starring Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana.

I know how it ends, so let’s say it qualifies as a chick-flick.

I finally saw the first La chica de ayer (Spanish Life on Mars) after Antena 3 put the whole episode online. It plays out more closely to the UK original than the US remakes, with most of the scenes intact, albeit with some name changes (e.g. Maya is now Sonia; and the others, such as Quin Gallardo, the Spanish Gene Hunt, I have noted on this blog before). However, there are additional scenes and from what I can sense, the pilot is a bit longer than both the original and US remakes, at around 65 minutes excluding commercials.

   Our protagonist, Samuel Santos, has encounters with Sonia’s mother—remember that this remake is set in 1977, not 1973—and young Sonia herself in the pilot. He also confronts the murder suspect in his jail cell, in a scene which results in the suspect’s death after he takes Cristóbal hostage. (While Quin does not hit Samuel in their first scene, he does so here.) Additionally, Samuel goes back to where he first awoke in 1977—near a tunnel—and sees a light at the end of it. Running toward it (with an instrumental of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ as he does so—the song works just as well here as David Bowie’s ‘Life on Mars’), he thinks it’s the way back to 2009, only to discover it’s a couple having a snog in a car with its lights on. He sees a poster which features a man jumping off a building, and decides it’s a clue to help him wake up back in 2009. In the end, of course, Ana comes to the top of the building to convince Sam to stay (a scene which is in the original UK version and the Kelley pilot, but is saved till episode 16 of the aired American remake).
   This final act is a bit more drawn out, but the acting is very good and transcends—only just—the cheaper sets used in the Spanish remake. One area where La chica de ayer lags behind both the UK and US versions is the score, which sounds overly melodramatic.
   The show works well set in Madrid and the high-rises and motorways chosen in the 2009 parts contrast the 1977 setting far better than the equivalent scene in the original and US remakes. There’s also more of the Samuel–Ana relationship at the expense of the Samuel–Quin one, and there’s no sign of Ana’s boyfriend, current or former, here.
   My Spanish comprehension is terrible at best even though I can read the language a little, so please bear this in mind in my judgement of the acting. The show has done well in the eyes of the Spanish critics and from what I can see, it has been faithful to the source and has set things up very well.

Antena 3 has some new videos on the making of La chica de ayer, including the producer and director discussing the transformation of the show from the original Life on Mars and moving the action from Manchester to Madrid. There are also clips from the première episode, and a glimpse of the Lost and Found room in Spain. (‘Rubbish, it’s nothing like Spain.’ Hang on, it is!)

Remember this scene?

   It’s Quin Gallardo and Samuel Santos figuring out who’s behind the kidnappings in the first episode of La chica de ayer—Spanish Life on Mars. Seems the show is doing very well in Spain with this Antena 3 TVC: