While many people have always claimed that Bollywood lacks originality, the claim has been true to a great extent. For a majority of Bollywood films have tried aping the west, not just in terms of actions or shootings or any post-production aspect, but even story-wise. In fact, it has also been noticed that some films have been an out and out copy of a Hollywood film, in an Indianised version. And we still continue to ‘get inspired’ by western cinema and literature for our stories. One of the latest examples is late actor Sushant Singh Rajput and Sanjana Sanghi’s film Dil Bechara, which was an adaptation from the novel (later converted to film) Fault In Our Stars.
Well, it’s never wrong to get inspired by someone’s creative craft. But copying the idea and Bollywoodizing it without much change is surely something Indian filmmakers can do better at. As William Shakespeare rightly said, “All the world’s a stage…”, looks like Bollywood filmmakers took this saying in a much more literal sense when they started exploring world cinema. Now, after Hollywood, South Korean cinema has been our film industry’s new breeding ground. Here are some films that are being or have been adapted from South Korea.
Blind
While the latest export to Bollywood from South Korea is untitled yet, it is adapted from Blind where we will be seeing actress Sonam Kapoor Ahuja play a visually impaired girl. The actress has begun prepping for her role and the film will go on floors by the end of this year.
Murder 2 – The Chaser
Not many might know, but the Emraan Hashmi-Jacqueline Fernandes thriller was adapted from the South Korean movie The Chaser. Murder 2 had a very similar plot to the film where girls are kidnapped and later on brutally murdered by a person who is impotent. And while the maker of Murder 2 did a brilliant job at telling the story, not complete justice was done to the original film.
Ek Villain – I Saw The Devil
Riteish Deshmukh, Sidharth Malhotra and Shraddha Kapoor starrer Ek Villain was a true copy-paste of the Korean film I saw the devil. In fact, the plot lines are so similar that it will leave you stunned, from the lady love being killed to the chase to the killer being on a murder spree, except for the faces and songs, nothing has been changed.
Bharat – Ode To My Father
Salman Khan’s last slice-of-life film Bharat which showed the actor travelling across different eras and age groups, left his fans quite amazed. But what if we tell you that there was no originality there, yes; Bharat was an adaptation of the South Korean film Ode To My Father. But yes, there was one vast difference, while Ode To My Father went on to be one of the highest-grossing films in the history of Korean Cinema, Bharat did not manage to do that great commercially.
Prem Ratan Dhan Payo – Masquerade
Another Salman Khan film that was inspired from Korean Cinema was Prem Ratan Dhan Payo which starred Sonam Kapoor Ahuja, Neil Nitin Mukesh and Swara Bhasker in pivotal roles. And this larger than life film had quite some references to the South Korean film.
Not just these few, even Aishwarya Rai Bachchan’s comeback film Jazbaa was adapted from the Korean movie Seven Days, while Ranbir Kapoor Priyanka Chopra Jonas’s film Barfi had some scenes copied from the Korean film Lover’s Concreto. With such a long list of movies, what’s to think about is that if South Korea is becoming the new breeding ground for Bollywood filmmakers, till when will we milk this cinema before we get original? Or will we ever get original?