For Movie Buff Buddhists

I remember watching Kurt Russel in a remake of Irwin Allen's Poseidon Adventure a few years back in a cineplex in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah. Somewhere in the Net, there's news that Madonna is considering remaking Casablanca, the black and white Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman 1942 vehicle. Movies have not only been remade in Hollywood. In Asia, for instance, films on the life of the Buddha have been made and remade for the umpteenth time. I remember watching a Japanese version when I was a child and many, many years later, there was of course, Little Buddha, a Hollywood movie where Keenu Reeves of Matrix fame, played Buddha. The first movie on Buddha actually went back as far as 1923 when Dadasaheb Phalke, the father of Indian cinema, made a silent movie in India called Buddhadev and then, there was The Light of Asia or Prem Sanyas, another silent movie by Franz Osten. India made at least 9 movies on the Buddha and two were joint ventures with Germany and France. Two were of course silent movies, four were documentaries and there was a serial called Buddha in 1997 and a 2D animation version called The Legend of Buddha in 2004. The latest was supposed to be in 2007 and the role of Yashodhara, wife of prince Siddhartha who later became Buddha was supposed to be offered to Aishwarya Rai. Il-ho Jang of South Korea made one in 1964 called Seokgamoni while Japan made two respectively in 1952 and 1961. For these two Japanese films, I was either not born yet or I was too little to watch and understand; so, I think I must have watched an old rerun in the theatre then and most probably, it must be the 1961 version since the Kenji Misumi's version, Shaka or Buddha sounds rather familiar. A 2008 version based on the book "Old Path White Clouds" by Buddhist Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh is now scheduled to be released in 201o. Movie buff Buddhists would perhaps welcome that but meanwhile just make do with Life of Buddha, a BBC production from YouTube...
Life of Buddha...