Research On Vietnamese Cross-cultural Film Remakes

2015 marked the year that Vietnam started remaking films.The first two films that were remade were "Love" and "Sweet 20"."Love" was a remake of "The Love of Siam"of Thailand and "Sweet 20" was a remake of the Korean film "Miss Granny".While both films are based on foreign versions,they had completely opposite outcomes.The former received a lot of criticism from the audience yet the latter has achieved great market success."Sweet 20" is the second-ranked film in Vietnam’s box office history and still the most successful remake film of Vietnam.This paper would like to explore why "Sweet 20" has been so successful;and what a remake film needs to become widely recognized besides the scripts and popularity of its original version.This research takes the film as a text in the perspective of intercultural communication by comparing "Sweet 20" with its Korean original "Miss Granny" and other remake versions,and based on that,draws the success of cross-cultural remake.On the basis of the meticulous observation,the author found that:for the plot and character setting,"Sweet 20" has a high degree of similarity with the original film;but by intensifying and reducing the behavior and reaction of the characters,"Sweet 20"makes the characteristics of Vietnam more prominent:On the one hand,character shaping is highly credible by making their behaviors fit in with Vietnamese culture;on the other hand,by emphasizing the contrast in characters’ behaviors and highlighting the importance of the comic roles,a Korean romance was remade into a Vietnamese comedy.In addition,"Sweet 20" also extended the social content of the film by using symbols.Through empirical research,this research draws the following conclusion:A remake film does not mean a secondary creation.Localizing a remake on the basis of respecting plot and character setting is more economical and more effective in making it successful.Localization can make the remake film conform to the local aesthetic and the national culture,so that it can induce the audience’s feelings.