The Manchurian Candidate

 

The Manchurian Candidate

The original Manchurian candidate was produced in 1962 and was classes as a Mystery Thriller.  The plot of the film is about  former Korean War POW gets brainwashed by the communists into becoming a political assassin. The storyline changes around as another former prisoner may know how to save him. 

The film starred popular actors and actress' during this time such as Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Janet Leigh and Angela Lansbury. The film had an estimated budget of $2,200,000 and grossed up to  $4,180,630 in the USA. 

Many great media concepts were used during he film as it used a very good range of non diagetic music to enhance the tension when Raymond was approaching the lake to kill his next victim, this was seen to be the key to the thriller genre. Many close ups were used to effectively show the emotions of the characters to the audience. Also the fog that was shown represents the lack of clarity within the characters as they experience infuriation overload and there dreams are ambivalent.

In 2004 another Manchurian Candidate was produced and published, however this was not the original. The film was an up to date version directed by Jonathan Demme, in which the film was in colour and used more hi tech equipment. The film starred actors such as Denzel Washington, Liev Schreiber and Meryl Streep. 

The estimated budget of this film was $80,000,000. Once the gilm was released into cinemas the film grossed $65,955,630 in North America, $30,150,334 in other regions which totals to $96,105,964 worldwide. 

After the film was released, 199 reviews were collected by Rotten Tomatoes. The film gained an overall approval rating from critics of 81% with an average score of 7.1/10. 


 The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

The Manchurian Candidate (2004)