Film remakes are usually reinterpretations. Gore Verbinski's "The Ring" (2002) has not only a different location (Pacific Northwest) but a different story line and mythology from Hideo Nakata's original "Ring (Ringu)" (1998).
The classic Japanese ghost stories about vengeful female spooks that inspired the scares in "Ring" didn't quite translate to the remake's American context. Verbinski and his collaborators found effective enough solutions to this problem — "The Ring" was a scary film — but they also lost something in the translation.
In remaking the 1938 Hiroshi Shizimu film "Anma to Onna (The Masseur and the Woman)," while retitling it "Yama no Anata — Tokuichi no Koi (You of the Mountain — Tokuichi's Love)," Katsuhito Ishii didn't have to cross cultures or languages. He also didn't have to re-imagine Shimizu's story about a blind masseur's love for a mysterious beauty since he decided to re-create the original, almost shot for shot.