When directors remake their own films, the result can be more than a rehash, one example being Alfred’s Hitchcock’s 1956 “The Man Who Knew Too Much,” a thriller based on his 1934 British film of the same title. Critics have argued the merits of both, but Hitchcock preferred the quite different remake. “The first version is the work of a talented amateur, and the second was made by a professional,” he told fellow auteur Francois Truffaut.
Working from his own script, Kiyoshi Kurosawa has also striven to surpass his 1998 dark revenge thriller “Serpent’s Path” in a new film with the same basic storyline — but shot entirely in France and mostly in French.
Again, whether he succeeded is up for debate, though the earlier film, which features yakuza genre star Show Aikawa and the Kabuki-trained Teruyuki Kagawa at the top of their respective games, is a cult classic. The new film, which stars Ko Shibasaki in the Aikawa role, delivers the requisite shocks and chills, while probing the depths of human deception and depravity with an unblinking gaze.