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Since its birth, Hollywood has remained the most dominant film industry, but it has frequently turned to other countries for inspiration. Each year, audiences are treated to remakes of movies from European countries as well as other regions around the globe. In East Asia, Japan has often been one of the go-to sources.

Related: 10 '60s Movies That Are Ripe For A Remake

Remaking the country's best movies for American audiences is always a good idea since the majority of its motion pictures aren't normally as well-known as those from Korea. This is partly because anime tends to overshadow anything else that gets made. So far, there are close to 30 known remakes, but some are much more enjoyable.

Sensitive topics are mentioned below, including suicide.

Apartment 1303 3D (2012) Based On Ataru Oikawa's Apartment 1303

Apartment 1303 3D is both scary and heartbreaking since the victim, Lara, never catches a break.

Akio Jissoji: The Buddhist Trilogy will be available on Blu-ray August 20th from Arrow Academy

Akio Jissôji created a rich and diverse body of work during his five decades in Japan s film and television industries. For some, he is best-known for his science-fiction: the 1960s TV series Ultraman and 1998 s box-office success Tokyo: The Last Megalopolis. For others, it is his 1990s adaptations of horror and mystery novelist Edogawa Rampo, such as Watcher in the Attic and Murder on D Street. And then there are his New Wave films for the Art Theatre Guild, three of which This Transient Life, Mandara and Poem, forming The Buddhist Trilogy are collected here.

Winner of the Golden Leopard award at the 1970 Locarno Film Festival, This Transient Life is among the Art Theatre Guild s most successful and most controversial productions. The film concerns a brother and sister from a rich family who...

Akio Jissôji created a rich and diverse body of work during his five decades in Japan’s film and television industries. For some, he is best-known for his science-fiction: the 1960s TV series “Ultraman” and 1988’s box-office success “Tokyo: The Last Megalopolis”. For others, it is his 1990s adaptations of horror and mystery novelist Edogawa Rampo, such as Watcher in the Attic and Murder on D Street. And then there are his New Wave films for the Art Theatre Guild, three of which – “This Transient Life“, “Mandara” and “Poem”, forming “The Buddhist Trilogy” – are collected here.

Winner of the Golden Leopard award at the 1970 Locarno Film Festival, “This Transient Life” is among the Art Theatre Guild’s most successful – and most controversial – productions. The film concerns a brother and sister from a rich family who defy the expectations placed on them: he has little interest in further...

Akio Jissôji created a rich and diverse body of work during his five decades in Japan’s film and television industries. For some, he is best-known for his science-fiction: the 1960s TV series Ultraman and 1998’s box-office success Tokyo: The Last Megalopolis. For others, it is his 1990s adaptations of horror and mystery novelist Edogawa Rampo, such as Watcher in the Attic and Murder on D Street. And then there are his New Wave films for the Art Theatre Guild, three of which – This Transient Life, Mandara and Poem, forming The Buddhist Trilogy – are collected here.

Winner of the Golden Leopard award at the 1970 Locarno Film Festival, This Transient Life is among the Art Theatre Guild’s most successful – and most controversial – productions. The film concerns a brother and sister from a rich family who defy the expectations placed on them: he has little interest in further education or his father’s business,...

Kuroi ame / Black Rain (1989) Direction: Shohei Imamura Screenplay: Shohei Imamura and Toshirô Ishidô; from Masuji Ibuse’s novel Cast: Yoshiko Tanaka, Kazuo Kitamura, Etsuko Ichihara, Shoichi Ozawa Animego’s DVD release of Shohei Imamura’s Black Rain includes as a bonus feature a selection of World War II-era anti-Japanese propaganda films. Sponsored by various U.S. government bureaucracies, most of these shorts traffic in the usual sort of wartime racism and paranoia which, depending on your sensibility, you will find either disturbing or amusing. The most egregious of these is something called My Japan, which features an actor in yellow-face hectoring the American audience into buying more war bonds by boasting that Japan won’t be defeated [...]...