＜Article＞Adapting Japan in the Cultural Economy: All of Us Strangers (2023) and Touch (2024)

This paper examines how recent international films adapt Japanese cultural elements in the context of the global cultural economy. Focusing on All of Us Strangers (2023) and Touch (2024), it explores how these adaptations engage with Japanese cultural specificity. Utilizing Robert Stam’s dialogic approach and Simone Murray’s concept of adaptation as both artistic expression and industrial strategy, the paper argues that adaptation is shaped by aesthetic, cultural, and commercial forces. All of Us Strangers, adapted from a Japanese novel, retains the emotional core of the source while removing all visual or cultural markers of Japan. In contrast, Touch incorporates Japanese settings and themes but simplifies or distorts them, particularly in its portrayal of hibakusha identity. The paper situates both films within ongoing dialogues about transnational authorship, Orientalism, and the commodification of Japanese culture. By comparing these two texts, the paper identifies a spectrum of approaches to “adapting Japan,” from thematic hybridity to visual appropriation. It concludes that the value in adaptation lies not only in critical engagement with the source text and culture, but also in close examination of the adapted text as an autonomous creative work. The study contributes to broader debates in adaptation and transnational cinema by highlighting how Japan is variously imagined, erased, or positioned in global film narratives.