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This movie should be seen by all Hitchcock - nay, all film lovers in its own right, but it is noteworthy for being a revisit of the same film by the same director, which provides subtle insights into how Hitchcock’s views and methods have evolved and improved in the 20-some years between the two versions.

The Departed

Better known as the movie that finally yielded Martin Scorsese his criminally overdue Oscar for Best Director and Picture, many may not know that the soon-to-be classic Boston police drama is a remake of the Hong Kong film Infernal Affairs.

Scorsese had very big shoes to fill - the Hong Kong original boasts a tightly spun narrative and what I understand is a star-studded cast, and performed exceptionally well in China. But the American Master delivered and then some.

(Spoiler warning.)

Perhaps the most brilliant touch that Scorsese added to the plot is the last-scene assassination of the mob mole, Matt Damon’s character, an additional touch of violence and darkness that does not exist in the original but that completes the cycle of betrayal and conveys Scorsese’s view of the inherit corruptions in the system. Some complained that the killing of the bad guy in the last scene somehow softened the ending for American audiences, and perhaps that is true, but it also added a uniquely Scorsese touch to the film.

I also enjoyed the combination of the two female characters in Infernal Affairs into a single psychologist, played by a subtle Vera Farmiga, in The Departed. As both DiCaprio and Damon’s character have an affair with her, the levels of complexity and psychological tension are increased manifold.

I would place the Departed as amongst Scorsese’s top three movies of all time - and that is saying a lot for the director of Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and Goodfellas. The original is absolutely worth seeing, but the remake knocks it out of the park.

The Ring

I expect to get some flak for making this my favorite/best remake of all time. After all, horror classics such as The Fly, the Thing or Cape Fear have remakes that surpass their originals by miles. Indeed, the horror genre is so replete with remakes that one could make a list of those all in their own right.

But the 2002 Gore Verbinski take on the Japanese 1998 horror film Ringu makes my list because few movies have chilled me or haunted as much as The Ring have in the last two decades. Mind you, the original movie is mind-blowing in its own right, and it deserves a place in horror movie lore. But the remake is, in my view, inarguably better for two reasons.

First, the explanation behind the tape’s sinister past is slightly more mundane, and therefore infinitely more frightening, in the Naomi Watts remake than in the Japanese original, where supernatural powers are the only real explanation for the curse. Second, some of the imagery and scenery of the remake - the image of the horse falling overboard comes to mind - make the film more powerful psychologically and more pleasing aesthetically - not to mention more sinister.

To this, add that Verbinski was smart enough to preserve intact the basic plot twist about the horror of having to make copies of the tape to ensure survival (changing that point would have been disastrous in my view), and you have one of the best horror movies, and certainly one of the best remakes, of all-time.

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