The Indian Parent Trap
The Hollywood Original: The Parent Trap (1961 version)
The Amazing Foreign Rip-Off: Do Kaliyaan (1968)
Biggest Deviation From Canon: It’s the old ‘twin siblings discover each other and swap places in order to set their parents up’ tale, so there’s not much that’s changed. Neither feature a still-innocent Lindsay Lohan, and neither are as good as TV show Sister, Sister .
The Turkish Young Frankenstein
The Hollywood Original: Mel Brooks's classic Young Frankenstein
The Amazing Foreign Rip-Off: Sevimli Frankenstein (1975)
Biggest Deviation From Canon: Well, for one thing, it's not funny. Unless you count the dodgy mask used to convey Frankenstein's monster.
The Japanese Spider-Man
The Hollywood Original: Spider-Man (any of them)
The Amazing Foreign Rip-Off: Supaidaman (1978)
Biggest Deviation From Canon: Daily Bugle photographer Peter Parker becomes motorcyclist Takuya Yamashiro. And, rather get bitten by a radioactive spider, Takuya's superpowers come from a magical bracelet given to him by a telepathic spider-like alien. Someone in Hollywood needs to rip-off THIS film right now.
The Turkish Tarzan
The Hollywood Original: Tarzan
The Amazing Foreign Rip-Off: Tarzan In Istanbul (1952)
Biggest Deviation From Canon: It’s the standard Tarzan story, but a lot of the wild animal scenes were filmed in a nearby zoo, leading to some shots of big cats in what is pretty obviously some kind of animal enclosure.
The Indian Clueless
The Hollywood Original: Clueless
The Amazing Foreign Rip-Off: Aisha (2010)
Biggest Deviation From Canon: Well, heroines from both films are extremely popular and try to set up their friends with each other and, when their plans backfire, they learn to be better people, apologise to their friends and get the guy they’ve fallen for. So there’s not an awful lot that’s different. But then, Clueless was based on Jane Austen’s Emma anyway, so really, who’s ripping off who?
The Hong Kong Street Fighter
The Hollywood Original: Street Fighter
The Amazing Foreign Rip-Off: Future Cops (1993)
Biggest Deviation From Canon: Ripped off from the successful game as opposed to the movie that we all know (which was released six months later), Future Cops still manages to play fast and loose with the plot and characters. The most fundamental example of which is when the characters travel back in time from 2043 to 1993 by um... catching a plane there. God only knows in what year their luggage ended up.
The Turkish Some Like It Hot
The Hollywood Original: Some Like It Hot
The Amazing Foreign Rip-Off: Fistik Gibi Masallah (1964) – “Thank God She’s Cute”
Biggest Deviation From Canon: In this version, our cross-dressing leads both fall for the same girl, which means twice as much gender-swapping hilarity!
The Indonesian Terminator
The Hollywood Original: The Terminator
The Amazing Foreign Rip-Off: Lady Terminator (1989)
Biggest Deviation From Canon: Other than the gender-swap? In this case, she is the reincarnation of an ancient killer called the Queen of the South Sea. Oh, and she kills men with sex. Otherwise, it’s all very similar to James Cameron’s killer cyborg story. There’s even a shoot-up in a nightclub. But lots of sex too, obviously.
The Indian Home Alone
The Hollywood Original: Home Alone
The Amazing Foreign Rip-Off: Hari Puttar: A Comedy Of Terrors (2008)
Biggest Deviation From Canon: It follows the Macaulay Culkin classic pretty strictly, with two bungling burglars being foiled by a young kid left at home (although not alone – he is with cousin Tuk Tuk), but in this case the burglars are trying to steal a secret formula created by his father. Imagine that – an entirely new formula being created from scratch. Ah, sweet irony.
The Turkish Straw Dogs
The Hollywood Original: Straw Dogs
The Amazing Foreign Rip-Off: Kartal Yuvasi (1974)
Biggest Deviation From Canon: Dustin Hoffman’s wimp-turned-badass David Sumner has been replaced with an elderly woman. Many of the other themes are present, but they are twisted here to reflect the ill-feelings between Greece and Turkey at the time over the Turkish Muslim community being forced out of Cyprus. And, just in case these parallels are too subtle for the audience to appreciate, the ending of the film is edited together with real footage of Turkish troops invading Cyprus, which was happening at the time of production. Way to get your point across.
