| Gooooood thread! I love anything and everything from Jackie Chan. Police Story is one of my favourite films and he was SO GOOD in Shinjuku Incident. Also love House of Flying Daggers, the cinematography in that film is just absolutely stunning, along with the locations and scenery. I'd still label the final sequence as one of my favourites of all time, too. Interestingly, I didn't really get the deal with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. As for Korean cinema... Oldboy is my second favourite film of all time and I adore Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter... and Spring. Also really like Peppermint Candy and Thirst. I should really get around to watching some more Korean films though. |
| I'm a big fan of Johnnie To. He's the director that basically introduced me to Hong Kong Cinema. Some of my favorites from him are Throwdown, The Mission, Election 1 & 2, and Exiled. I also absolutely love Wong Kar Wai. In the Mood for Love, 2046, Chungking Express, and Ashes of Time are all favorites I revisit. I am really looking forward to The Grandmaster. Some others favorites include, Lust, Caution, Once Upon a Time in China, Time & Tide, Police Story (probably my favorite action movie of all time), Infernal Affairs, Sha Po Lang (Killzone in the U.S.), Crouching Tiger, and Hero. John Woo's classics such as The Killer and Hardboiled also deserve mention. I am not as good with Korean director names but my favorite films are A Bittersweet Life Chan-wook's Revenge trilogy I'm a Cyborg but that's OK Memories of Murder Musa 3 Iron I'm looking forward to watching The Yellow Sea. I picked it up because of the critics' favorable reception and the interesting story. Didn't know it was directed by the same guy who did the Chaser though. |
BluntZAug 20, 2011 1:37 PM
Movie of the Week Humanity and Paper Balloons ( Sadao Yamanaka, 1937 ) If you are a fan of (or simply interested in) Japanese films then please join the Cinema of Japan club! Thank you (: |
| I saw the Chaser but it was a couple of years ago and don't remember much. I do remember really liking it though. |
Movie of the Week Humanity and Paper Balloons ( Sadao Yamanaka, 1937 ) If you are a fan of (or simply interested in) Japanese films then please join the Cinema of Japan club! Thank you (: |
| I'm yet to see Chinese movies, yet, I'm a little more connected with Korean. :D I've seen 2 of the 3 movies, of the saga vengeance: Oldboy Lady vengeance And the last one, which I haven't seen, is, Mr. vengeance. They are ok, not marvelous, but it's good for a one watch. |
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TakeshiKitano said: Can't really put my thoughts into words so I'll just leave it with my rating of the movie, 9999/10. Aha! Really glad you enjoyed it. "Lust awakens the desire to possess. And that awakens the intent to murder." Can't remember if I've asked you before or not, but I assume you've seen Samaritan Girl? Would you recommend it? I thought it looked quite good, it's been on my plan to watch for some time. |
| It's pretty sad, but all of the movies mentioned in this forum are pretty much the creme of the crop that I know of. Chan-wook Park is in my mind the one the best Korean directors, but Ki-duk Kim is certainly second. Unfortunately much of K-drama is incredibly over the top with sentimentalism. Close ups on someone crying don't necessarily elicit emotion and this tends to be a staple of a lot of kdrama's that overuse music and emotive situations to 'force' emotion. I've yet to see a Korean love story, other than 3-Iron perhaps, if you can call that a romance, that has truly made my heart jump. I hope you all have some great suggestions to change my mind, and I will admit to not having watched a great deal in the Korean department. On the other hand, Hong Kong's Wong Kar Wai is my undisputed, possibly the undisputed champion director in the Romance department. Chungking Express, In the Mood for Love, Fallen Angels and Days of Being Wild are probably my favorite movies in cinema period. I'm going to have to think of some more great Asian cinema and repost later. But what hasn't been mentioned here is Vietnam. I didn't see another forum here for Anh Dung Tran's award winning work. Scent of Green Papaya, The vertical ray of the sun and Cyclo are must see asian cinema too of course. Edit: Taiwan has produced some great works too.Ming-liang Tsai is a director I was introduced to a while ago. My favorite work of his would be 'The Hole'. However you might be familiar with his father son sex movie called 'The River' which caused some controversy. Another one of my favorite romance movies is from China called Suzhou River (Suzhou He) by Ye Lou who also did another movie called Purple Butterfly which I'd also recommend. Honestly though Suzhou River really touched me. It's a great love story. Oh course everyone knows about Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and when talking about chinese cinema, Yimou Zhang's works are certainly necessary. Others have already mentioned 'Hero' and the 'House of Flying Daggers', I'd also recommend 'Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles', Raise the Red Lantern, To Live, and Not One Less. I'm just going to list some great chinese films that I've also enjoyed. Zhou Yu's Train by Zhou Sun. Farewell My Concubine and The Emperor and the Assassin by Kaige Chen The King of Masks by Tian-Ming Wu Beijing Bicycle by Xiaoshuai Wang Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Sijie Dai Still Life by Jia Zhangke I've seen a lot more but that's all I can think of for now. |
Orion1Apr 26, 2012 5:11 AM
| Speaking of movies made in China, I liked Curse of the Golden Flower a lot. Visuals in these movies are always great. |
If you are a fan of (or simply interested in) Japanese films then please join the Cinema of Japan club! Thank you (: |
| Curse of the Golden Flower felt like Yimou Zhang tried really hard to recapture some of the spark that Crouching Tiger and his previous movie Hero achieved. Unfortunately I think it fell short. The visuals were definitely eye candy, but I couldn't help comparing it to the previous movies mentioned. I suppose his House of Flying daggers also suffers from the same problem of just not measuring up. It doesn't mean it was a bad movie just that I was a little disappointed that either of these movies weren't at least as good as 'Hero'. Of course that is a tall order indeed. |
Orion1Apr 27, 2012 4:46 AM
| Anything by Hou Hsiao Hsien, Jia Zhang-Ke, Tsai Ming Liang, and Edward Yang are great. |
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| I just saw A Moment to Remember. Great movie. |
If you are a fan of (or simply interested in) Japanese films then please join the Cinema of Japan club! Thank you (: |
| The only korean movie that I watched is Cinderella |
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| Then you should watch more Anotherfan. A good place to start is Park ChanWook's vengeance trilogy and anything by Kim Ki-Duck. The Truck, GP506, or I Saw the Devil would also be possibilities. Jump in and get wet! |
| I just finished watching Hong-jin Na's the The Chaser. Good God that was a violently twisted story. I can't believe it's based on real events or so I read in another review. It really makes me anticipate watching The Yellow Sea although from what I've read it isn't as good. Still some great suggestions yall. |
| I watched Castaway on the Moon yesterday and was happily surprised. Very funny and heart warming story. It's not as dark as Zemeckis's Castaway, but there are a few similarities, possibly homages. The rom com element was tasteful and bizarre enough. It was exactly the movie I needed to watch last night. Actually, very strange how much I resonated with the beginning. The modern world is very often an extremely depressing and unforgiving place. I highly recommend giving this Korean film a look. |
Orion1Feb 9, 2013 4:30 PM
| Well the Asian invasion isn't always a successful one. Wong Kar Wai's my Blueberry Nights wasn't a failure but it certainly wasn't even close to the mastery of his other films. |
Orion1Mar 31, 2013 4:38 AM
| John Woo was born in China no? |
Movie of the Week Humanity and Paper Balloons ( Sadao Yamanaka, 1937 ) If you are a fan of (or simply interested in) Japanese films then please join the Cinema of Japan club! Thank you (: |
| You're right Bluntz I was thinking of Ang Lee, but even he was actually born in Taiwan and didn't become a naturalized U.S. citizen until later in life. But John Woo has been helping modernize the Chinese movie industry, or at least according to him on one of the Red Cliff special Featurettes. |
| So many fonds memories of pre-Hollywood John Woo. Blueberry Nights wasn't great, but at least visually it was a coherent step in his evolution: I remember him pushing transparencies and reflections to the next level. |
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| Red Cliff was released in a theatrical and an international version stateside. I watched the epic longer Chinese version of course. It was a choice on Netflix from the beginning. The theatrical release only made $626,809 stateside. World wide it seems to have recouped it's 89,140,288.32 million dollar budget with 119,627,047 according to this site. Although that sites production figures are not in line with IMDB's estimate. |
Orion1Mar 31, 2013 3:16 PM
| Production wise there is a lot of money going through China and some decent films coming out. However, if a film isn't produced to fit into the dominating political ideology, it's modified to do so. Nearly every wuxia film includes some element of government propaganda and the same can be said about every political drama (and add some anti-Japanese sentiments). I think the 1980s and early 90s when Zhang Yimou and Tian Zhuangzhuang made classics such as Farewell My Concubine, Raise the Red Lantern, and Blue Kite were some of the best years for Chinese cinema. I haven't seen a production of that caliber from China in over a decade. |
Movie of the Week Humanity and Paper Balloons ( Sadao Yamanaka, 1937 ) If you are a fan of (or simply interested in) Japanese films then please join the Cinema of Japan club! Thank you (: |
| I did watch Yimou Zhang's newest The Flowers of War not too long ago. I saw it before most of the western critics had torn it to pieces. But I think this anti-Japanese propaganda you speak of is heavy in this new interpretation of such works as the The Rape of Nanking. Some critics took issue with the addition of prostitutes as gratuitous addition of sensationalism to an otherwise horrific event in Chinese and Japanese history. Critics also criticized the addition of Christian Bale and the western element. I thought it was a bold and interesting display of the new found purchasing power of the Chinese film industry which has been increasingly drawing big name actors to their theaters. The production costs of 94,000,000 USD were also seen as grotesque by some. Overall I felt the story was moving and to date had some of the best special effects and impacting close quarter urban warfare scenes in my memory. Right up there with movies such as Saving Private Ryan. The Flowers of War decided to take a different approach to the story, and see it through the eyes of a Foreigner. I found that through these eyes, the horror of the Japanese atrocities were even more atrocious and surely welcomed by the Chinese propagandists. The juxtaposition of virginity verse prostitution once again added new perspective to the invasion of Nangking. It helped give the story a soul of it's own and kept from being just another retelling of films like 2007's Nanking, 2009's City of Life and Death, and the now mostly forgotten Black Sun: The Nanking Massacre, renamed Men Behind the Sun 4 in an attempt to regain some of the attention that Tun Fei Mou received for his earlier Men Behind the Sun film by the distributors. |
Orion1Apr 1, 2013 1:15 PM
| I just saw The Flowers of War. Great movie. |
If you are a fan of (or simply interested in) Japanese films then please join the Cinema of Japan club! Thank you (: |
katje said: That's are really interesting list with many films I haven't seen katje. Thank you for sharing them, I will definitely look into them. I remember reading something about the Petition before and wanted to watch. Maybe this is a good push. Thanks again. |
| Has anyone seen A Tale of Two Sisters? Will it scare the crap out of me? |
If you are a fan of (or simply interested in) Japanese films then please join the Cinema of Japan club! Thank you (: |
| I didn't think A Tale of Two Sisters was the least bit scary blood. A little over dramatic and worth a few laughs perhaps. |
| It appears the great new hope of Korea to break into the international market Masquerade is now surfing the Internets. |
| I still have a lot of movie to see before this one. It looks decent, nothing more. |
If you are a fan of (or simply interested in) Japanese films then please join the Cinema of Japan club! Thank you (: |
| I finally got to watch Masquerade. Best Korean period piece film that I've seen to date. I'm not kidding either, Masquerade was a really great interpretation of the prince and the popper |
| Ohhh! Great thread! I have lots of favourites from China. My current favourite Chinese director is Jiǎ Zhāng-kē. His most famous works are "The World"(Shìjiè), a film about a real Chinese amusment park, Beijing World Park, which recreates world landmarks at reduced scales for Chinese tourists, rather like Epcot in FL), and my personal favourite of his "Still Life" (Sānxiá hǎorén), a film about a small town on the Yangtze River, Fengjie, which was destroyed by the building of the Three Gorges Dam. And about love. Kind of. highly recommend this one - fans of Yellow Earth or Chén Kǎigē will enjoy this one. I haven't seen it yet, but I am also pretty excited about A Touch of Sin (天注定; Tian zhu ding) - "The film revolves around four threads set in vastly different geographical and social milieus across modern-day China, ranging from the bustling southern metropolis of Guangzhou to the more rural townships in Jia's home province of Shanxi. Set in current times and based on allegedly true events from the recent past, the film also draws on the history of wuxia stories. Its English title is a reference to King Hu's 1971 action epic A Touch of Zen, one of the most influential wuxia films." (from Wikipedia) Spotlight on a few more favourites (as evidenced by many of the titles here): Zhāng Yìmóu (张艺谋) Chén Kǎigē (陈凯歌) Féng Xiǎogāng (冯小刚) Stephen Chow My favourite actor at the moment is Ge You. He is very witty and clever in his performances. He works almost exclusively with Féng Xiǎogāng (another fantastic director). Some of his best roles are: * Farewell My Concubine - Chén Kǎigē * Big Shot's Funeral (2001) - Féng Xiǎogāng - my absolute favourite role of his! Also stars Donald Sutherland being brilliant and mental as always. * A World Without Thieves (2005) - Féng Xiǎogāng * If You Are the One (2008) - Féng Xiǎogāng - there is also a sequel to this. *Eighteen Springs (Bànshēng Yuán 1997) - Ann Hui - another Eileen Chang adaptation! Other favourite and recommended Chinese films include: Ang Lee: Eat Drink Man Woman Lust, Caution (Sè, Jiè) - based on a wonderful Chinese essayist-novelist, Eileen Chang) Chén Kǎigē: Temptress Moon Yellow Earth (黄土地; Huáng tǔdì 1984) - with cinematograohy by Zhāng Yìmóu!!! I highly recommend this one - fans of Still Life or Jiǎ Zhāng-kē will enjoy it immensely. Stephen Chow: Shaolin Soccer Kung Fu Hustle Wong Kar-wai: Chungking Express In the Mood for Love Zhāng Yìmóu: Raise the Red Lantern Shanghai Triad - Possibly my favourite movie in all of China. Not One Less The Road Home Love in a Fallen City (1984 King sing ji luen) - Ann Hui - another Eileen Chang Spring in a Small Town (小城之春; Xiǎochéng zhī chūn 1948) - Fèi Mù The King of Masks - Tian-Ming Wu Electric Shadows - Xiǎo Jiāng highly recommend this one to cinema nuts |
starshinesMonetMar 9, 2014 12:40 PM
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| Has anyone seen New World? Min-sik Choi plays in it and it seems to be a good gangster/crime movie. Nameless Gangster was great so I am expecting this to be too. And speaking of Min-sik Choi, he will play in a Luc Besson movie called Lucy. From the trailer it seems vaguely inspired by Elfen Lied and it will premiere this summer. edit: This looks great. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AQPeyfEzaE I am a real sucker for this kind of stuff. |
PandaMaster99Jul 17, 2014 5:55 AM
If you are a fan of (or simply interested in) Japanese films then please join the Cinema of Japan club! Thank you (: |
| Epic bump: There's a new youtube channel that uploaded a crapload of classic Korean movies (yes they have eng. subs). https://www.youtube.com/user/KoreanFilm/videos I have no idea what to see first though. |
If you are a fan of (or simply interested in) Japanese films then please join the Cinema of Japan club! Thank you (: |
| I love the old Jackie Chan movies. He was so funny and the movies were pure joy to watch. Sadly, most of the stuff he made in USA is crap (Rush Hour?). At least we have Jet Li now. |
If you are a fan of (or simply interested in) Japanese films then please join the Cinema of Japan club! Thank you (: |
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