YAM-FanCast: Remaking Koreeda’s Like Father, Like Son

I’ve done this thing before [1][2][3a][3b], I just haven’t done it officially. And though I haven’t furthered my ideas for my Japanese version of The L Word, I was pondering about my director for my contemporary India version of Mildred Pierce– between Vishal Bhardwaj (re-adaptations), Anjali Menon (female POV) or Vikramaditya Motwane, I settled for the later. I think it would be an asset to have his experience with parent-child stories like Udaan.

Anyway, Rodrigo and I had been discussing remakes and re-adaptations of other movies and series, so I decided to give the first step on the site and post this: my Indian re-adaptation of Koreeda’s Like Father, Like Son.

Shahid Kapoor as Ryota Ninomiya (Fukuyama’s character), Nawazuddin Siddiqui as Yudai Saiki, Nimrat Kaur as Midori (Ryota’s wife), and Richa Chadda as Yukari (Yudai’s wife).

First, there’s the big change I want to make: I want to gender-switch the sons for daughters, so it creates a gender conflict against Indian society. It wouldn’t be Like Father, Like Son any longer, but it’s not like I get to keep the title. For all I care, this can be called De Tal Palo, Tal Astilla. LOL Plus, don’t people usually say that fathers are closer to their daughters, while mothers are to their sons?

How do you say Love Is Thicker than Blood in Hindi/Urdu? xD Valtsalya Khuna Se Mota Hai (वात्सल्य खून से मोटा है)? I’ll just call it Valtsalya if it’s not offending anyone. xD

I picked Shahid as Fukuyama’s character because both of them seem like the alpha male pretty boys. I did think of Ranbir Kapoor in the role (though not as pretty), but then it felt like I had to change the rest of the cast, which came to mind faster than either of them. Nawazuddin as Franky’s character, Richa as Maki and Nimrat as Ono all came naturally, though I did try the inverted option of Nimrat and Chadda’s roles.

Plus, there’s the cherry on top of Shahid Kapoor actually having a step-mother in Supriya Pathak, whom I wouldn’t doubt to cast in Jun Fubuki’s character. I feel like that real-life relationship can bring an interesting understanding of the issue, as well as a dynamic within the story.

As my director, I would love to pick Motwane once again, but I feel Aparna Sen would be the only one to even dare to do the gender-switch needed for this re-adaptation. Plus, she’s got that art house quiet sensitivity needed for the story and her flare to give it a feminist-tinge wouldn’t be bad considering we’re reevaluating daughters’ relationships to their fathers and how society sees them. All of that, of course, at the risk of Aparna casting her daughter Konkona Sen Sharma in one of my main roles… but I feel we would all settle for a Konkona cameo (as the nurse).

The baby-switch issue wouldn’t be a problem at all, as we’ve seen from Deepa Mehta’s Midnight Children ;)

So how did I do?