Remade by inter-Asia: The transnational practice and business of screen adaptations based on Japanese source material

This chapter assesses the implications of Japanese individual and institutional authorship in recent inter-Asian adaptations and remakes. It examines two cases from the perspectives of intellectual property negotiations and local remediation. In the first case, a small Japanese company worked hard to see three Korean drama remakes come to fruition, but the projects were negotiated in extremely unstable production networks in South Korea and Japan. The second case considers a recent Chinese film adaptation of a thrice remade Japanese idol drama. The successful film, created by translocal talents in China and Taiwan, remediated a romantic fantasy to suit the class sentiments of Chinese youths. The two cases offer a comparative and complementary perspective on the relative power of independent players and media corporations in the transborder screen trade.