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Anyone into Foreign Films?

post #1 of 16
1/1/06 at 8:33pm
Thread Starter 
Just wanted to share some foreign films that I managed to see over the holidays.

1) Sepet (a truly Malaysian film): It is one of the few successful Independent Films from Malaysia to have made it in the International Film Festivals circle (I think winner of the Tokyo Film Festival). Anyone from South East Asia (especially Singapore and Malaysia) would love this movie. Those of you who are not, it is still a great movie to catch to see how life really is in Malaysia.
Link: http://www.kakiseni.com/articles/reviews/MDYyOQ.html

2) The Myth: Another Jackie Chan movie but unique in that it has casts from China, Hong Kong, Korea and India. Also, Jackie Chan moving away from his Buster Keaton type role into a more serious role...and probably his first crack at a little romance in his movies.
Link: http://www.monkeypeaches.com/themyth.html

Any other good foreign films you have watched lately?
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post #2 of 16
1/1/06 at 8:40pm
Here is an excellent Korean film :

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...s=dvd&v=glance
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post #3 of 16
1/1/06 at 8:45pm
Actually I think Jackie Chan's first romance film was Gorgeous. I didn't like The Myth too much, I felt they wasted Tony Leung's character and they never explained what happened between Jack and his teacher.

I've been watching hong Kong films my entire life and have recently gotten into China, Japanese and Korean films. There are just too many (Asian) foreign films to recommend. Any specific genre you like?
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post #4 of 16
1/1/06 at 9:01pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by YamiTenshi
Actually I think Jackie Chan's first romance film was Gorgeous. I didn't like The Myth too much, I felt they wasted Tony Leung's character and they never explained what happened between Jack and his teacher.
Hmmm...you are probably right. Personally, I only really enjoyed the "Ancient" part of The Myth, really, the love story between Princess Ok Soo and General Meng Yi. The modern Buster Keaton style movie wasn't too good.

Quote:
Originally Posted by YamiTenshi
I've been watching hong Kong films my entire life and have recently gotten into China, Japanese and Korean films. There are just too many (Asian) foreign films to recommend. Any specific genre you like?
I'm a sucker for the romance and romantic comedy genre. The Koream film recommeded by Gaijin looks very promising.

Personally, I really enjoyed Sepet and am trying to get its sequel, Gubra (which was just selected for the 49th San Francisco International Film Festival). Since you are in California, if you have a chance, do try to catch it. Link: http://yasminthestoryteller.blogspot.com/

Any other recommendations?


BTW, using my DT880 for Sepet and the HD580 for The Myth was AWSOME!
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post #5 of 16
1/1/06 at 9:27pm
Romance seems to be the genre I am least familair with. But I still recommend "Fly Me to Polaris". It's definately one of the best love story's that I've seen from Hong Kong. I loved Cecilia Cheung in this movie though I think it was one of her first acting jobs. For older Hong Kong romances check out "Chinese Ghost Story" and the "Moment of Romance" movie series.
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post #6 of 16
1/2/06 at 1:17am
I like foreign film. Some of the most interesting (best?) I've seen:

Il Mare: Korean "love across time" flick. Of course, a bit syrupy-romantic, but I'm a sucker for that stuff. Apparently they're doing a Hollywood rendition of it with Keanu Reeves, bizarrely enough.

My Sassy Girl: another Korean film, comedy/romance. Really sweet movie.

Seven Samurai: obvious. :P

All About Lily Chou-Chou: Very surreal, yet very gritty at the same time. The score/music is also outstanding.

And the original Ring! I don't care what anyone says, Sadako is WAY scarier than Samara or whatever.
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post #7 of 16
1/2/06 at 10:47am
An interesting gentlemen's thriller. A must see.

http://www.reel.com/movie.asp?MID=13...en&CID=13#tabs
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post #8 of 16
1/3/06 at 1:30am
meifa: you can get both the soundtrack for All About Lily Chou-Chou and a Lily Chou-Chou album (for information, the music is by Takeshi Kobayashi of My Little Lover, and the voice of Lily is Salyu, who released a solo album last year), I got mine from amazon.co.jp, they're highly recommended - the Lily Chou-Chou album is one of my favourites, and the packaging for both is beautiful. I'd definitely recommend the director's other movies, especially Swallowtail Butterfly, which was also a music-based movie and has a great soundtrack including the best cover of My Way ever.

Another Japanese director I'm fond of is Koreeda Hirokazu - After Life is a beautiful movie.
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post #9 of 16
1/3/06 at 3:28am
Quote:
Originally Posted by AdamWill
meifa: you can get both the soundtrack for All About Lily Chou-Chou and a Lily Chou-Chou album (for information, the music is by Takeshi Kobayashi of My Little Lover, and the voice of Lily is Salyu, who released a solo album last year), I got mine from amazon.co.jp, they're highly recommended - the Lily Chou-Chou album is one of my favourites, and the packaging for both is beautiful. I'd definitely recommend the director's other movies, especially Swallowtail Butterfly, which was also a music-based movie and has a great soundtrack including the best cover of My Way ever.

Another Japanese director I'm fond of is Koreeda Hirokazu - After Life is a beautiful movie.
Yeah, I was thinking about purchasing the cds off of cdjapan.co.jp. I have to compare the prices (Japanese cds are so much more expensive than what we have stateside), but I plan on getting them soon.

I did a little research into Salyu after seeing the movie. I thought the whole creation of the character Lily Chou-Chou was really interesting. I'll have to add Swallowtail Butterfly to my netflix queue.

On another note, a non-asian classic that came to mind: Leon (The Professional). Good movie.
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post #10 of 16
1/3/06 at 1:41pm
I really got into Werner Herzog's older films a couple years ago, however they're very hard to find. They aren't yet available on DVD. I'm hoping that the popularity of Grizzly Man will change that!
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post #11 of 16
1/3/06 at 3:04pm
Japan is a longtime favorite of mine. Especially for samurai films. But they've had a rash of really excellant horror films in the last 5 years. China has always had good action(Any Wong Fei-Hung film, Iron Monkey) & comedies (Lucky Stars, God of Cooking, Shaolin Soccer), but the "serious" films were either not shipped to America, or what we got was rarely better than awful. The last few have shown some good ones; Hero, House of Daggers, The Road Home, In the mood for Love). Spain, for some reason or another tends to crank-out genre pictures by the boatload. But my Personal favorite country of the last 2 years is France. The movie industry of France doesn't seem to settle for the same dreck that exists on TV, and they also like to experiment (a veritable taboo in American movie studios): elbisreverrI, Amelie, The Crimson Rivers, Brotherhood of the Wolf (werewolfs, Indians, Kung-Fu, and Powdered Wigs, Oh-My!),The Vanishing, High Tension, Fat Girl but maybe France just isn't letting us see their bad movies :P
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post #12 of 16
1/3/06 at 3:38pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rock&Roll Ninja
Japan is a longtime favorite of mine. Especially for samurai films. But they've had a rash of really excellant horror films in the last 5 years. China has always had good action(Any Wong Fei-Hung film, Iron Monkey) & comedies (Lucky Stars, God of Cooking, Shaolin Soccer), but the "serious" films were either not shipped to America, or what we got was rarely better than awful. The last few have shown some good ones; Hero, House of Daggers, The Road Home, In the mood for Love). Spain, for some reason or another tends to crank-out genre pictures by the boatload. But my Personal favorite country of the last 2 years is France. The movie industry of France doesn't seem to settle for the same dreck that exists on TV, and they also like to experiment (a veritable taboo in American movie studios): elbisreverrI, Amelie, The Crimson Rivers, Brotherhood of the Wolf (werewolfs, Indians, Kung-Fu, and Powdered Wigs, Oh-My!),The Vanishing, High Tension, Fat Girl but maybe France just isn't letting us see their bad movies :P
Here's a good French movie, much better than "Amelie" :

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...v=glance&n=130
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post #13 of 16
1/3/06 at 4:06pm
I've seen plenty of foreign films.

Many of them come from a place called Hollywood.
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post #14 of 16
1/3/06 at 9:45pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Meifa
Yeah, I was thinking about purchasing the cds off of cdjapan.co.jp. I have to compare the prices (Japanese cds are so much more expensive than what we have stateside), but I plan on getting them soon.

I did a little research into Salyu after seeing the movie. I thought the whole creation of the character Lily Chou-Chou was really interesting. I'll have to add Swallowtail Butterfly to my netflix queue.

On another note, a non-asian classic that came to mind: Leon (The Professional). Good movie.
IIRC the prices really weren't that bad off Amazon.co.jp, I think better than the specialist sites (I usually use YesAsia). The site's not that hard to use even if you don't read Japanese, you can get English versions of some pages and the rest you can work out pretty easily, it's just like the English sites. I had to get my copy of the Swallowtail Butterfly 'soundtrack' (again, it's done as an album by the fictional band from the movie - called Yen Town Band in this case, the album is called Montage) from eBay, though, it's been out of print for a while I think.

ninja: good call on In The Mood For Love, personally I'm a sucker for anything Wong Kar Wai (though my boyfriend can't stand him). I liked Chungking Express a bit more, but that might just be because I'm a Faye Wong fan...didn't get around to seeing 2046 yet, I bought a copy on DVD but it turned out to be a pirate copy and the disc didn't work, grah. Have to get another copy.
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post #15 of 16
1/4/06 at 2:36am
Lately, we've been in a Korean movie kick. Just saw Sympathy for Lady Vengeance which was fantastic... a little more straight forward than Chan-Wook Park's Oldboy or Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance. Other interesting Korean films:

The Isle - Can't even explain this one...
Samaria - Young prostitutes, death, redemption...
Spring, Fall, Winter, Summer and Spring - Beautiful story about life. Oddly enough, by the same director as Samaria
3 Iron - Interesting love story...

So many out there. Korea = The New HK? Maybe... definitely some innovative director's coming out of Korea over the past 10 years. Lot's of recognition lately with international distribution.
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