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West reinvents culture of East
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Many years ago, before the age of cyberspace, I found a Japanese manga series at a specialty bookstore in San Francisco. Created by Yukito Kishiro, ÒBattle Angel AlitaÓ is a story of a post-apocalyptic world where humans scavenge to survive, many using robotic technology to replace their lost limbs, becoming de facto androids.
They live in a ruinous metropolis named Scrapyard and above them hovered a fable city called Tiphares. Home to the privileged few, its access was virtually impossible but once in a while Tiphares would dump garbage down to Scrapyard, and over these pieces of broken equipment the scavengers would battle one other.
Fast forward two decades and Tiphares is renamed ÒElysium,Ó the No. 1 box office hit in theaters today. It stars Matt Damon as Max, who is trying to knock down ElysiumÕs heavenly doors. Damon plays a dying factory worker named Max and who, propped up by a mechanical suits, has to get to Elysium to get himself fixed, or die trying. (AlitaÕs boyfriend died while trying to get to Tiphares, and she, the strongest entity on earth, went up to beat the crap out of those in control of Tiphares and shattered the city).
ÒElysiumÓ is the latest American production that confirms once again that the Information Age is also the Age of Appropriation. ItÕs a world in which ideas and stories exist side by side for the borrowing and taking, and ultimately, the mixing.
WhatÕs imagined and invented in one hemisphere is quickly digested and regurgitated in another, and they are often resold as brand new ideas. The East is guilty of this for almost a century, of course, from mass reproductions of brand name luxury and electronic goods to making movies that borrowed wildly from Hollywood films.
Trend reversed
But that trend seems to be in the reverse: The West, too, borrows increasingly from the East.
At first it was a trickle. ÒSeven SamuraiÓ by Kurosawa became ÒThe Magnificent Seven,Ó by John Sturges, for instance, and KurosawaÕs ÒYojimboÓ turned into Sergio LeoneÕs ÒA Fistful of Dollars.Ó In the last couple of decades, however, it accelerated, especially after the creation of ÒThe MatrixÓ by the Wachowski brothers, a seminal blockbuster film that was inspired by the ideas and plotlines in the Japanese manga, ÒGhost in a Shell.Ó
But it was the martial arts genre that found great enthusiasts among famed directors like Oliver Stone, Francis Ford Coppola, Quentin Tarantino, and many others.
Tarantino, ÒinspiredÓ by ÒCity on FireÓ by Ringo Lam, made ÒReservoir Dogs,Ó but claimed it was homage and not stealing. In ÒKill Bill I & II,Ó Tarantino exploited the Hong Kong martial art genreÕs classic revenge, and even gave Uma ThurmanÕs Bruce LeeÕs yellow jump suit to wear as she slaughtered Japanese gangsters with glee.
Kung fu fighting, once exotic, has become the norm. These days kung fu fighting is so common that it serves as the background to various movies, television shows, video games, and ads.
The Far East, indeed, has come so very near to the Wild, Wild West. And she is chic, alluring, and inventive. Which is another way to say that the East is hot, especially for the plundering. No wonder thereÕs an army of Hollywood executives quite busy scouring East Asia for successful films to remake.
Ripe for the picking
KoreaÕs horror genre, especially, seems ripe for the picking. ÒA Tale of Two SistersÓ by Kim Jee-Woon was made into ÒThe UninvitedÓ by the Guard Brothers, Young-hoon ParkÕs ÒAddictedÓ turned into Joel Bergvall and Simon SandquistÕs ÒPossession,Ó and Sung-ho KimÕs ÒInto the MirrorsÓ was shortened into ÒMirrorÓ by Alexandre Aja.
If the world is experiencing what every one now calls the process of globalization, a large chunk of that phenomenon seems to be shaped by an epic union between East and West.
So much so that it now seems self-evident that the energy that is fueling the major part of the 21st-century global village is that of the hybrid space in which re-invention and remake is key.
Back when the Internet was but a brook and not a raging river, Asia was so far away. Those of us who longed for her read manga to get our fix. But we quickly discovered that what was a private passion one day has spilled irrevocably into the public domain the next.
In the Age of Appropriation, when so much in the West is being inspired and borrowed from elsewhere, we take solace in seeing the center of gravity of the world moving from its Eurocentric moorings, going slowly but surely eastward.
Andrew Lam is New America editor and the author of ÒEast Eats West: Writing in Two HemispheresÓ and ÒPerfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora.Ó His latest book of short stories, ÒBirds of Paradise Lost,Ó has won the PEN OaklandÕs Josephine Miles Award.
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