i haven't seen a lot movies of this genre YET,i wasn't very interested, i admit

HERO was a turning point for me,though

are there more masterpieces like that out there?
(have seen tiger&dragon and didn't like it very much,so don't bother)


and:what the heck is a paifang?

[ April 11, 2007: Message edited by: sisterdew ]

I liked Hero better than House of Flying Daggers, for some reason. I'm not sure exactly why...

I'm getting a copy of Takashi Miike's Ichi the Killer. I've heard it's either absolutely horrible or incredibly wonderful. Im betting on horrible, but I'm still looking forward to it. :)

And welcome for your topic, this is a great idea. :)

I've only seen one Japanese movie that I'm aware of. And we totally didn't get it. Some collection of short movies, that I've totally forgotten the title of. Haven't got a clue what they were about either. (But that's not surprising, seeing how I didn't get them.)

Yalahii.

Jendaiya wrote:

I liked Hero better than House of Flying Daggers, for some reason. I'm not sure exactly why...

I was very disappointed by HoFD.  I found it unbalanced, and with character issues.

I've heard Audition was pretty good. I don't know what it's about, but then I didn't know what Ichi was about til I watched that.

Why would you only *maybe* watch Audition? Have you heard it's not good? I heard Ichi was terrible, and it was. But it was terrible in a funny/good/pretty way. :)

LOVE Ichi...villain in there is in a kind of goofy Japanese gangaster movie called "Sharksin Man and Peach Hip Girl.

"House of Flying Daggers" makes myself and my two friends who went to see it with me twitchy...it should have ended 30+ minutes earlier than it did...drawing out a death-scene for 40 minutes is just DAMN ridiculous...I wanted to stand up in the theatre and say "Just F****ING DIE already!"
*twitch*

"Oldboy" is another stange Korean action/gangster/violnce-prone/Psychological movie that has some VERY bizzare twists in it, though I do highly reccomend it. I want to go and See the Korean monster flick out now before it goes away.

Back in Mass I had friends that were big into Kung-Fu Flicks so we got to see a lot that varied between good and hysterically 0ver-the-top ("Dragon Inn" and "Butterfly sword" qualify in the latter category). "Storm-riders" was pretty cool and had some VERY nice effects. "Warrirors of Zu" had incredible effects, but the story was a mess.

"Curse of the Golden Flower" was a Phenomenal movie, simply gorgeous to watch and Chow Yun Fat was awesome as the Villain thoguh I think Ging Li stole the show with her acting.
And The Cleavage Displays didn't hurt my enjoyment of the movie either, but I'm a guy...not for everyone I guess. The sets were gorgeous too, such an amazing riot of colors.

I liked "Hero" too, nice story, interesting Cinemetography and I liked how each story had a different color associated with it.

I love asian films...I just don't feel too much for what I call "Just Kung-fu" films... where there actually only fighting without much of a story...

Hero was great although I had to watch it twice to see the greatness in it...

Seven swords is again a very good story...and I love the "magical" swords-idea...

Oldboy...well what can you say... very very nice...

Then another one, Ong-Bak, which was amazing once I finally got myself to watch it ( I thought it was more Kung-fu kinda film but it wasn't)...

Of course in my list is also a nice place for Chrouching Tiger, hidden dragon which was just amazing and the film that started me extending my interest to asian "fight" films...

Then on to a more obscure couple;

Batoru Rowaiaru about a group of schoolkids being put on an island with different kinds of weapons and one mission...to kill until only one remains... And I must say, even though the idea is just too much, the film was just excellent...

Darn...I forgot the other one's name... but it's kinda gross... lots of death and blood and masses of weirdness...

And then in a totally different category... and one of my all time favourite films:
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter and Spring no words needed there... I've never had a film in which basically nothing happens, and which has almost no dialogue, touch me so deep...

And now for my next one... still waiting for the right mood, as I have the feeling this is going to be very much quite weird... Bright Future....

Well, it is not more gory that Ichi, but ... you might like it. Alexandra says it is better, but I didn't think so.

Alexandra's favorite Korean movie is "Sympathy for Mr. Vengence."

So, I guess I'll have to watch the WHOLE thing and report back to you.

Movie Review Time!

Children of Men: Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Caine.
It's billed as a sci-fi flick, but it has none of the guns in space and big monsters ro aliens you'd expect. It's a strange sort of film altogether, but enjoyable regardless. The sci-fi comes form it being a near-future story in which humanity has lost the ability to have children for reasons unknown and it's been lost for 18 years. The movie is pretty much a look at where humanity could go in such a situation. Insert a disillusioned former activist who is asked to help escort a you woman to the coast who is the first pregnant woman in eighteen years. There's a lot of unexpected twists and turns in the story which made it very refreshing and ALL of the acting was top-notch. (Chiwetel Ejiofor is all set to blow up big on the small screen, STRONG actor!) There are quite a few 'action' scenes but they're very realistically done including a street-level battle between a military/police unit and some refugees holed up in a building.
I highly reccomend watching the film at least once to decide for yourselves if you like it or not; ultimately I DID enjoy it in the end, though it left me feeling kind of depressed at the end...still worth watching.

Shaun of the Dead: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Kate Ashfield.
I'd heard a lot of good things about this movie but had avoided it because I'm not much of a Zombie flick fan, but with the same production companies new movie "Hot Fuzz" coming out soon I figured I owed them a look-see at this film and I was NOT dissapointed! Comedy and mild horror mixed with some very good dramatic bits and acting I throughly enjoyed. I will definatley be adding this to my DVD collection in the near future. Highly enjoyable movie!

i just saw a ad for the curse of the golden flower tonight. i so want to see it. the scale of war in the preview was very impressive.

i like those kinds of battle sceens.

but my most fondest memories are the asia movies that were put out during the 60 and 70's. lots of swords and such. my memory is shot on titles from then. but i still remember the actiona nd old story lines. like they kind of are doing with anime now.

sorry put i really have a thing for anime.