I've always been interested in how things effect the entire world not just mine. When I studied Shakespeare in High school, I wanted to know How his plays were used in other cultures. I Found this Japanese film adaptation of Hamlet online. It had really good reviews and had won several awards so I ordered it from Netflix.
The Bad Sleep Well was made in the 1960's by Akira Kurosawa who actually has made a few Shakespeare film adaptations of the tragedies. This adaptation of Hamlet is set in the Japanese corporate world. Though there are some plot differences Overall I thought the film was a very cool take on the classic story. The Themes of the film are still revenge and Identity but changes in the plot such as Koichi Nishi, the Hamlet character, gets married to the Ophelia counter part give Koichi Nishi a moral conscience that works as a stumbling block on his path to revenge.
THe Film is shot in a kind of noir style and it's scenes are directed in a dramatic suspenseful tone. The movie opens with a wedding much like Shakespeare's play but a twist Koichi Nishi is marrying the daughter of his fathers business partner who killed his father. thus changing the role of Gertrude, Hamlets Mother. The Polonius character ends up being the uncle-family character. The cultural influences and plot twists make this a very good/interesting film. Its cool to see Shakespeare's influence on such a different culture (Japanese) as opposed to western civilization.
Oh genius! I didn't even think of looking at other cultures' adaptations of Shakespeare. That's brilliant. And this sounds really interesting.
ReplyDeleteIt is fun to see how different cultures interpret the themes in a play, and how they adapt the play to work for their culture.
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