It's not that uncommon for Americans to "borrow" film ideas from other countries. The Return of Martin Guerre was a well-reviewed foreign film that most people never heard of, and was remade into Sommersby (with Richard Gere and Jodie Foster). Point of No Return was a nearly identical remake of La Femme Nikita. The Ring was a remake of J-Horror film, Ringu. I'm sure there are plenty of films in other countries that draw their inspiration from American films too.
For the most part, you don't imagine the films are going to be that good. Sometimes, you get a weird ping-pong effect of borrowing and borrowing again. Akira Kurosawa often drew inspiration from his films from the West, and made a samurai version of the film. The Seven Samurai could have been inspired by various Westerns, then it, too, was borrowed back in The Magnificent Seven, and then copied in Battle Beyond The Stars.
That's perhaps the most successful of the borrowing, as Kurosawa is considered a master filmmaker, and The Magnificent Seven is reasonably well regarded.
I was watching previews for the latest Martin Scorsese film, The Departed, whose plot line seemed awfully familiar. Indeed, it sounds like the basic plot of Infernal Affairs, which stars Tony Leung and Andy Lau in a rather clever twist. The Triad (presumably--the Hong Kong "mafia") want a mole in the police department, and the police also want a mole in the triad. Neither side knows there is a mole in the other side.
The previews basically suggest this, with Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon, playing the role.
But it is a little odd thinking of Martin Scorsese making a remake of a film (he was reluctant to make Cape Fear thinking it wasn't his kind of film). True, he's set it in an environment that he knows best--New York City, but even so.
Scorsese has been a fan of Chinese cinema (and Japanese, for that matter), though his preferences have usually leaned to mainland China than Hong Kong films, even though Hong Kong films, with its fascination of crime culture, ought to be more in line with films Scorsese had made.
We'll see how this has turned out. (I'm trying to recall the last time Jack Nicholson has done a movie with Scorsese. Honestly, it's hard to recall if this is the first time they've worked together or not. It looks like it is the first time.)
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I stumbled upon this post while doing my usual rounds searching for Akira Kurosawa related posts (I run a Kurosawa website at http://kurosawa.vertebratesilence.com/).
For some reason your post launched a flood thoughts:
a) Perhaps an even better example of a Kurosawa film that was inspired by John Ford's westerns (Ford was one of Kurosawa's favourite directors) and then turned back into a successful western is Yojimbo. The story was literally stolen by Sergio Leone and made into 'A Fistful of Dollars', Leone's first internationally recognized spaghetti western. Kurosawa sued, and as a result made more money out of Leone's film than did Leone himself.
b) The film was later remade (or re-remade?) a number of times, not most memorably as 'Last Man Standing' with Bruce Willis.
c) Eddie Izzard has a fun tongue-in-cheek take on what happens to British movies when Hollywood takes over: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjC3R6jOtUo ;)
d) Scorsese apparently didn't know that the script given to him was a rewrite of Infernal Affairs when he read it. That might explain why he took the project.
e) This is the first time Nicholson and Scorsese work together. At least according to IMDb -- their "credited with" search is handy in these cases. :)
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