Asian movies

[Osmium]

The Tale of Iya

That looks really good, it looks like a cross between Firefly (Hotaru)[nb]directed by Naomi Kawase who appears in The Tale of Iya[/nb] and Fire Festival (Himatsuri) which are both great films.

[Miasma]

Just watched 'A Hard Day' on Amazon prime... fans of South Korean thrillers should definately check it out. Very entertaining, marred in only a couple of places by the unrealistic resilience of the bad guy. Best flick I've seen in a while.

[Van Dammage]

Quite enjoyed that one, they really make good thrillers over in Korea. Although it was a bit too unrealistic at times, as you said.

[Dropshadow]

Another shout-out for The Good, The Bad, The Weird which I watched an hour ago. A Korean clash (in a good way) of Indiana Jones, Mad Max, Kill Bill and (of course) The Good, The bad, The Ugly. The Kill Bill thing is interesting in that both films use the "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" track by Santa Esmeralda to great effect, and the "Bad" guy in the title is played by an actor that looks uncannily like one of the baddies in the Kill Bill cartoon sequence (the one that sets fire to the room in which O-Ren Ishii's parents are killed). Enjoyed every bit of it (the film, not O-Ren Ishii's parents being killed).

[steveh]

Watched the Shaw Brothers horror classic The Seeding of a Ghost over the weekend. Starts out like a mundane Cat III movie then morphs into an exploitation thriller before becoming a war between good and black magic and finally an incredible battle involving

Spoiler alert

an exploding foetus with tentacles

[close]

. The acting and dialogue are expectedly ropey and the big effects show up their age and low budget, but it wins on sheer ingenuity.

[popcorn]

Right, watched Kabukicho Love Hotel. Or Sayonara Love Hotel as it's known in its original language (Japanese), a much better title and, I would have assumed, a more marketable title in the west. Weird.

I thought I was gonna love it but I didn't. The first ten minutes are lovely, and so are the last, but the rest is spoilt by a jumbled set of stories and characters that never click, a misjudged tragicomic tone, and an inappropriately cutesy soundtrack that makes everything sound like a Motorola advert or an episode of Community. I do love the shots of Tokyo in autumn though, and the wistful vibe of the scenes set outside the hotel.

[great_badir]

I watched Long Arm of the Law last night.  Incredibly disappointed.

As something of a HK film aficionado, back in the late 80s/early 90s, when HK films were starting to be taken seriously and get a bit more popular in the UK, Long Arm was always THE one to see, but was also the most difficult one to get hold of, seemingly overlooked by all the UK distributors of the time (I think the only English-friendly version was a heavily cut US pan and scan laserdisc with a terrible English dub, that cost a fucking fortune to import).

Anyway, seeing that Chinese distributor Fortune Star had fairly recently released an uncut blu with the original soundtracks and English subs, I decided to go for it.

I think I now know why the UK distributors weren't all that fussed - aside from a few moments, I have to say I found it quite a cringe-worthy watch.  Masses of OTT melodrama (even in comparison to most HK films of the time and of a similar ilk) and misplaced "comedy", with punches of slapstick music score, and some pretty ropey acting.  I was all set to plough in and get the other three as well but, on the back of the first one, I'm not so sure I'll bother.

Possibly partly a case of "lost in translation", but not completely.

[Herbert Ashe]

I'm surprised by that; I saw it last year for the first time and loved it; especially the end in the Walled City, that blew me away in terms of how it seemed to set up HK crime films for the rest of the decade. I think maybe it just suffers a little in comparison because of how quickly HK stuff moved on over the next few years. I forget the name of it - but a while back I saw a 1981ish HK crime film which seemed amazingly far removed from Long Arm, more like a decade than a couple of years.

A lot of the humour - it's just poking fun at mainlanders, right? Making them out as country bumpkins; and then of course it undercuts it once they start shooting things up.

[great_badir]

I'm surprised by that; I saw it last year for the first time and loved it; especially the end in the Walled City, that blew me away in terms of how it seemed to set up HK crime films for the rest of the decade. I think maybe it just suffers a little in comparison because of how quickly HK stuff moved on over the next few years. I forget the name of it - but a while back I saw a 1981ish HK crime film which seemed amazingly far removed from Long Arm, more like a decade than a couple of years.

A lot of the humour - it's just poking fun at mainlanders, right? Making them out as country bumpkins; and then of course it undercuts it once they start shooting things up.

The climax (and a couple of other sequences) are the few allowable asides to which I alluded.

It's not that it has humour, it's just that it (or, perhaps rather, the execution of it) is hugely misplaced in a film which otherwise attempts to be Ann Hui/early Jacob Cheung with guns.

Have you seen any of the other three?

[Herbert Ashe]

..hugely misplaced in a film which otherwise attempts to be Ann Hui/early Jacob Cheung with guns.

Ah ok, I get where you're coming from, fair enough. I tend to have a very high tolerance for these sort of mismatches, although I think it's fairly organic in this.

Never seen the rest - figured it would be a crapshoot if they were any good given change of director & new (I presume) cast.

[Moribunderast]

Been mentioned a few times in this thread but I finally got around to watching Love Exposure. You'd think, having seen quite a few Shion Sono films that I'd be prepared for his madness but it gets me every time. The premise alone is barmy, the way it's set up is ridiculous and the way it all plays out is just a gorgeous mess. Felt a little overlong (237 minutes) but I'm not generally a fan of films going over two hours and I actually couldn't nominate any chunks I'd actually want cut from this. The absurdity of the characters and the premise kept the comedy coming throughout and there were moments of absolutely ridiculous gore - it's just a beautiful mish-mash of everything. I've still got a lot of Sono's work to get through (IMDB says he's directed five films THIS YEAR?!) but every film of his that I've watched thus far has been good-to-great - and at the very least you know they won't be boring!

[great_badir]

Overjoyed to see Film4 once again showed the fully uncut version of Police Story 3 last week.  First time in over a year (which I missed).

[Head Gardener]

soon...

[Head Gardener]

several thousand folk die in the new trailer to Ultraman

[Spiteface]

It should be pointed out that the pic you posted is not related to the trailer. It is actually for the currently-running season of the TV show, Ultraman X. It still does the rubber suit monster thing and does it rather well. Ultraman isn't what it was (financial troubles at Tsuburaya), but what it has over Toei's stuff is the fact you can watch it legally with subtitles on Crunchyroll, along with some other shows (I recommend Ultraman Leo for some 70's action)

That trailer is allegedly some CGI thing Tsuburaya has lined up for next year. There's supposed to be two things they are doing next year. One is a regular TV show (Which may or may not be a follow-on from X), and then this, possibly for an older audience, seeing as next year will mark the 50th Anniversary of Ultraman.

I'm more a Garo man, myself

[wooders1978]

Ha - they're drinking a fizzy drink called "slash"

[Spiteface]

It's no wearing a jacket with "DO A RAT" on it. Depends if Rodent-sex is your bag, though.

[popcorn]

I live in Japan and I don't understand why I don't have any Engrish shirts yet.

One of my teenage students here has a sweater that says "SMILE IN THE BEAUTIFUL WORLD". What marvellous advice.

[Urinal Cake]

I watched HHH's 'The Assassin' it is gorgeous and slow. It's basically a moving painting.

[Noodle Lizard]

Anyone seen the new Takashi Miike one, Yakuza Apocalypse?  I've got it downloaded and had a skim through to check the quality and it looks suitably bananas.  Haven't seen a bad film by him yet, I don't think.

[Osmium]

Anyone seen the new Takashi Miike one, Yakuza Apocalypse?  I've got it downloaded and had a skim through to check the quality and it looks suitably bananas.  Haven't seen a bad film by him yet, I don't think.

Watched it the other night and thought it was quite enjoyable, got a couple of laughs out of me and of the 70 so Miike films I've seen it would definitely rank in the top half.

I watched HHH's 'The Assassin' it is gorgeous and slow. It's basically a moving painting.

Watched this one last night and loved it. Beautiful image after beautiful image, I don't think anybody makes films as good Hou Hsiao Hsien. To be fair though I could have been staring at a still image of Shu Qi for the duration of the film and still would have adored it.

[Spiteface]

I watched HHH's 'The Assassin' it is gorgeous and slow. It's basically a moving painting.

I haven't watched wrestling in over a year, but I saw this post and thought "Hunter's making films about himself now?[nb] one of Triple H/HHH's nicknames being "The Cerebral Asassin"[/nb]

I thought I got it all out of my system by now.

Anyway, recently I watched Super Hero Taisen GP: Kamen Rider 3, the 4th and latest of Toei's annual clusterfucks. Bug-eyed mofos fighting rubber monsters created by Space Nazis. Also some Wibbly-Wobbly Timey-Wimey stuff going on. About 2/3s of it were good. The real highight for me was seeing Tetsuo Kurata reprise his iconic role as Kotaro Minami, aka Kamen Rider BLACK/Black RX:



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nl5SN72rlIk

For some reason, certain Toei guys from the 70's and 80's (even 90's to an extent) have a certain aura to them that the newer guys don't just yet. Kenji Ohba as Retsu Ichijouji/Space Sheriff Gavan looked like getting older was the best thing that happened to him.

They rebooted the Space Sheriff series and they were pretty well-recieved, and seem to be bringing back Sentai teams for some DVD specials. Bring this guy back for a full film.

[Urinal Cake]

Because they were men, now they are boys. I gather the didn't have to be so goofy/funny in the past either.

[popcorn]

I haven't seen any lovely dreamy Japanese dramas for ages. Anyone seen any?

[Osmium]

Our Little Sister is unrelentingly pleasant.

[popcorn]

I watched The Wailing last night, a recent Korean horror movie.

Jesus Christ! It was a bit up and down for me - started strong, then got a bit boring - but the final 20 minutes gave a proper spooking the likes of which I don't think I've ever known. Horror films rarely truly scare me, but...

Spoiler alert

the final scene, when the bloke finally reveals himself as a full-on demon, was an amazingly affecting bit of special effects work. It really felt like I was looking at something no man was meant to see.

[close]

I'll be thinking about that for years.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Hmmm, my brain's a bit fragile for truly traumatic horror so I think I might skip that. I'm glad to see this thread bumped though as I've been using it a lot over the last few months to explore Asian cinema further, and have to say that Van Dammage's list on the first page contains an enormous amount of information about superb films that I've really enjoyed.

[Van Dammage]

Hmmm, my brain's a bit fragile for truly traumatic horror so I think I might skip that. I'm glad to see this thread bumped though as I've been using it a lot over the last few months to explore Asian cinema further, and have to say that Van Dammage's list on the first page contains an enormous amount of information about superb films that I've really enjoyed.

Glad to be of service. Did you say that you watched Castaway on The Moon recently? If it wasn't you then definitely check it out. Oh and if you're still looking for some light hearted stuff try to track down the original My Sassy Girl

I recently rewatched Adrift in Tokyo. A lovely low key film about a student who owes about a million yen to a debt collector. Said debt collector comes around his gaff and threatens him and then the next day comes back with a proposition for the lad. He says he'll give him all the money he needs to pay the debt if the student takes a walk around Tokyo with him. A kind of heartwarming film but a bit sad all the same. The two characters walk around Tokyo and encounter lots of odd people while we learn more about them, and why the debt collector wants the student to accompany him on this walk. Lots of funny moments and the two characters are very likeable and their relationship really progresses in a natural way after the first encounter. Highly recommended.

[Kishi the Bad Lampshade]

Not a film, but has anyone else been watching Samurai Gourmet on Netflix? Excellent stuff.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Glad to be of service. Did you say that you watched Castaway on The Moon recently? If it wasn't you then definitely check it out. Oh and if you're still looking for some light hearted stuff try to track down the original My Sassy Girl

I recently rewatched Adrift in Tokyo. A lovely low key film about a student who owes about a million yen to a debt collector. Said debt collector comes around his gaff and threatens him and then the next day comes back with a proposition for the lad. He says he'll give him all the money he needs to pay the debt if the student takes a walk around Tokyo with him. A kind of heartwarming film but a bit sad all the same. The two characters walk around Tokyo and encounter lots of odd people while we learn more about them, and why the debt collector wants the student to accompany him on this walk. Lots of funny moments and the two characters are very likeable and their relationship really progresses in a natural way after the first encounter. Highly recommended.

Oops, didn't see this until now, but yeah, I've seen both Castaway on The Moon and the original My Sassy Girl thanks to your recommendations and loved them greatly, so I'll definitely check out Adrift In Tokyo as soon as I can.