The New Asian Films Thread - Page 2

KUNG FU DUNK is from Chu Yen Ping, aka Kevin Chu... the director of FANTASY MISSION FORCE and loose SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL remake SHAOLIN POPEY. So, obviously, I want to see what this lunatic does with a (comparatively) big budget.

I just saw Samaratin Zatoichi tonight...which is another great Shintaro Katsu Samurai Film. I also saw Zatoichi's Pigrimage with Michiyo Ookusu as the female lead. She also play's Zatoichi's Aunt in Takeshi Kitano's 2003 film. The 14th Zatoichi film is the most humorous so far. While it is not a comedy, it is a good time to be had by all.

With all this Zatoichi talk I found this stage version of it starring Sho Aikawa and is apparently directed by Takashi Miike, weird.

http://twitchfilm.net/site/view/a-tr...oichi#extended

I know this is not film talk, so I was also popping in to find some recommendations for some good films to check out now that I have my netflix account back. Looking for something less rooted in martial arts, ghosts, and special effects. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

If you can, watch Mad Detective, it's a really good film about a former detective (Lau Ching Wan) who has a unique gift (or curse) of seeing people's inner personalities, he's asked by a rookie cop to help solve a case.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEPcopoWnKI

Just watch the trailer if you're not sure, I posted a review in the foreign films section, more people need to see this film.

Looks great, but it doesn't seem to be available. I'd like to catch up on Johnny To's films though, what are some of his better recent films?

Exiled, Election 1 and 2 are some of To's best work. People might disagree on Election but I think it's a good film.

Cool, I'm getting exiled right now.

The above cannot be stated frequently enough.

MAD DETECTIVE is out now on all-region DVD in HK, getting a limited US theatrical release from IFC Films in July, and will be out on Blu-Ray in the UK in October as part of Eureka's Masters Of Cinema collection. Region coding on the Eureka release is unknown at this time so hold off on that pre-order unless you're in a Great Britain-compatible Blu-Ray region.

I encourage everyone to check out Mad Detective.

I'm thinking about throwing $40 for the J-release of Smile which comes out next week.

I'm a sucker for hockey movies and SMILE looks like a fun little movie.

I just noticed that Yu Wang died last week. I think I'll watch Dirty Ho in memoriam.

Mad Detective has the best Lady From Shanghai homage you'll ever see. It's also totally brilliant.

And he has Sparrow this year as well.

And so continues my love affair with Johnnie To.

The latest trailer for Cultured Bird aka Sparrow is just splendidly whimsical, it really feels like an old fashioned movie, the kind they really don't make anymore, or maybe it's just the music.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biGwV--lo4U

Watched Beauty Investigator last night; totally cheered me up from the shitty night I was having. DM got me hooked with a Yukari Ôshima highlight reel on youtube - this marks my first dip into the Hong Kong Girls with Guns/Badass Female Martial Artists genre (well not counting So Close).

Loved it. Loved it. Went in looking to see some Ôshima bad-assery, fell hard for the Moon Lee charms (and also bad-assery). Turns out she's a total cutie with great moves to boot: seeing her drunk at the bar, flipping off a driver in their way during a chase scene, and her reaction to her boss saying no one would want her 'services' as a hostess were pretty great. Some genuinely funny moments too, and lots of the usual quirky HK humor kept things lively between stunts/fights. Funny note: When Grace was getting destroyed in her fight with the main bad guy, I was thinking to myself "Man, even though this is sort of a quirky, buddy-cop comedy, knowing HK movies I bet they'd have the balls to kill her off.. or would they??" They sure do Trejo, they sure do. The Ôshima vs Lee fights were fantastic, and the one with the main heavy.. though his death was a bit anticlimatic. The twist still doesn't really make any sense - Ôshima was a cop the whole time, yet assassinates all kinds of people during the film, including blowing up a cop car with officers inside, without reprecussions?? Anyway, that doesn't detract from the joy of watching the film.. just though it was kind of odd.

Now I really need to see Kickboxer's Tears. Thanks for the heads up on these DM!

I still enjoy the car chase with Moon destroying various cars along the way, dodgy as fuck but still entertaining. I wouldn't worry about the films making sense, it would be be nice but it's just something these films have no interest in, well, the low budget ones anyway.

I hope you enjoy Kickboxer's Tears, it's more of a drama not nearly as goofy as Beauty Investigator but it still has some great fights.

Machine Gun girl is out on DVD. I really want to buy this, but the DAD in me realizes that I'd only be able to watch it when my son is asleep.

But I have a $10 best buy card and its currently $14 there.

For those that are kung-fu fans you can pick up 'Lady Whirlwind' for an insanely cheap price Here

You may not know it, but you just sold me on that fucker. I have to find this now. That sounds too nuts to miss.

That's pretty much how I watch all my movies, after the kids go to sleep. Go with it man.

well I bought Machine Girl. It is as silly as it is gory.. pretty much a fun time for a low budget movie. Still doesn't have anything on Versus or Death Trance.

and I'm pretty sure the end shrine is the same place Kitamura shot Sky High.

For those that are fans of old school kung-fu I'm offering to send a copy of Lady Whirlwind free of charge to the first person who sends me a PM. I also have Hapkido if anyone wants that.

I recently watched City Of Violence for the first time and thoroughly enjoyed it.

I thought I'd made a post of this nature some time ago but apparently I, uh, I didn't hit Reply. Anyways.

City Of Violence is a lot of fun; it actually reminds me of A Bittersweet Life as far as being a Korean action film that's heavily reminiscent of HK flicks (and most particularly John Woo flicks). Recommended highly, especially for those who enjoyed Bittersweet.

I just saw Wilson Yip's Flashpoint his second film with Donnie Yen. While it starts out as more of a drama...the action flies fast and furious in the last 30 min. The story is not as interesting as SPL and despite the fact that Yen has anger issues and beats the criminals he encounters to death his interaction with his rule obsessive captain is too tame for the concept to work properly until the final act of the film. Next up for me is Wilson Yip's Dragon Tiger Gate, which sounds like it should be an action packed 90 min unlike the good but not great...Flashpoint.

I watched FLASHPOINT, and while I was not 100% paying attention, to say the story was less interesting than SPL is understating the case greatly. FLASHPOINT has interesting action sequences but I missed the strangely moving attention to character that Yip used effectively in BIO-ZOMBIE and SPL. I shouldn't even care about the fates of Jordan Chan and Sam Lee in BIO-ZOMBIE - they're pretty much assholes, though compared to some of the other characters they're not so bad - but somehow Yip and his cast make it work.

reggie-wanker, What is Bio-Zombie?

Sorry for the double post.

reggie-wanker, I just saw Dragon Tiger Gate and it is the best of the Wilson Yip/Donnie Yen martial arts films. The action is fast and furious and even the quieter moments are very interesting. DTG is basically a HK superhero film where 2 brothers must re-unite to protect their fathers martial arts school the Dragon Tiger Gate from the people whose ideas and ideals differ from them. After seeing DTG I would like to see Wilson Yip direct either Marvel's Iron Fist or Shang Chi Master Of Kung Fu.

What I thought was great is the homage to the warriors and the big brawl with the outnumbered guys. The movie is fine, but I wish it was more than just one giant homage to Ryu Seung Wan's Favorites, though he puts them in interesting places, like the guy with the Katana in the hallway. Notice the "Vertigo" shot. For fun, listen to the commentary when the duo invades the place with wooden swords near the end, as the director describes having the need for an "orgasmic" song to go with it.

In other news, I just saw the 2 Election movies and enjoyed them greatly. What I especially like in the tightly interwoven and complex plotlines that all take place within the near-90-minute runtimes of both of the films. Johnny To just doesn't like any fat or unnecessary scenes in his films and it shows. Ill be damned if Louis Koo gets more than what he bargained for at the end of Election 2. Any hopes for a third?

Well, just saw Tokyo Gore Police...

...



yeah, this movie is fucking crazy. Most will check out at the sight of the quadriplegic gimp. Because that gave me nightmares.

Wilson Yip's no-budget 1998 zombies-in-a-mall comedy-horror film starring Sam Lee fairly early in his career and Jordan Chan at a time when he was in pretty much every movie made in Hong Kong. Nothing to change the world, but very good for what it is, and with what's got to be one of the most clever uses of a split-screen in film history. I can't find the real trailer for the film, just the abysmal English-dubbed one courtesy of Tokyo Shock/Media Blasters, who released this in America. I refuse to link to their trailer because it's total shit, as is their dime-store English dub. It can be found using Google, but I won't be a party to it because I like this film a lot and that trailer isn't worthy.

Myspace has the soundtrack for Johnnie To's 'Sparrow' online, it sounds great, 'Simon's ride' is an absolutely gorgeous track.

http://www.myspace.com/sparrowsoundtrack

It took me all of six seconds of listening to decide to order this CD. Thank you kindly, Dragon Ma. That's seriously great. Worth the half-hour it'll take to scrub the MySpace cooties off my computer.

Anyone who wants to buy a real CD instead of some bullshit lossy MP3 download, head to amazon.fr. US Amazon.com is fronting. I don't spend money on lossy encodings of music.

Reggie-Wanker, Thank you for the info on Bio-Zombie.

It's wonderful. The spirit of Jacques Demy lives...

I'd just like to give props to this thread, which I recently just looked at for the first time. I sometimes dabble with watching foreign films, including those from the Asian continent. I'll be happy to participate in this, although I'm a real novice compared to the regulars in this thread (I haven't heard of many of the movies mentioned already). I've tried to participate in other similar threads on different boards, but for whatever reason things didn't turn out well, from small-pricked moderators locking the thread for no reason to other miscellany that makes me appreciate this thread and board and how they are run so well.

As for random comments on relevant movies, I've seen stuff like Tony Jaa's two big worldwide films*, The Host (i.e. Gwoemul)** was rad and I was lucky to see it on the big screen at an "arty" theatre in Orlando, and I've seen Asian horror such as 3 Extremes (that was quite the experience, but I enjoyed all three).

* both are great, despite problems with both and their stories at times
** the way the plot was constructed… odd, admittedly, but I still enjoyed how it blended all those genres together)

I don't really buy Asian films. Rather, it's either from rental or what I catch on digital cable-usually the free stuff. The Sundance Channel On Demand service sometimes offers up stuff relevant to this thread, such as The Great Yokai War and a film I only remember as being called "A Korean Blade Runner; I recorded both and by the end of the year I'll watch both.

Anyway, I wish I could've seen the old Asian thread, but at least there's this one around, and I'll thank everyone for recommendations on things that I'll at least try to see if I'm able to.

This weekend I'll see Mongol and I'll write about it in a separate thread rather than trying to figure out if it's technically an Asian film or not (given that the production is German/Russian/Kazakhstanian); it's the same arty theatre that played The Host.

This thread and the other have been lots of fun. I don't get to see as many films as I used to, so I don't have too much to post about lately.

That soundtrack did sound sweet.

That'd almost certainly be NATURAL CITY.

Yeah I believe that's it. I'll try to watch that... before the end of the year, at least. It's just that the backlog of stuff I have to watch is really ridiculous.

At least I got to see Mongol tonight. Everyone should go out and see it. I'll talk about it in a thread I'll start soon.

Please start that Mongol thread! I'm eager to find people that have seen it.

I'm sold. You had me at "repeatedly uppercutting a ferret". I'll try to watch it soon.

Speaking of Miike, the only full movie I've seen from him is Ichi The Killer (Koroshiya 1). I can't say I cared for it too much. It wasn't even because of the extreme gore and torture. Rather, it was due to the story and how too often I had no clue what was going on. I spent too much time trying to figure out who one person was, then I was bamboozled by something else... yeah, I don't know if it was just me, but that took me out of enjoying what was a very perverse story that I probably would not have cared for that much anyhow. At least I thought The Box segment from Three Extremes was fine.

I started the Mongol thread in the Focused Film Discussion section rather than this one, as I reasoned it may be better served there given its current theatrical run.

I've never considered Ichi one of his better films. It's based on a manga, with all the problems that often implies.

I watched my first Asian film in HD yesterday and it was....


Eat Drink Man Woman. I don't know which came first, Eat Drink Man Woman or the Joy Luck Club but there are definitely similarities. The biggest being that my wife loved both.

I'd say The Bird People in China as well, loved that one. Though you'd never know it was a Miike film...

Watched Kickboxer's Tears on the weekend, after many failed attempts to get through Yes, Madam! (late late weekday nights are for fail).

Enjoyed it a bunch; was great to see the General from Fist of Legend getting his kickbox on, the guy is a blast to watch. Moon Lee was great (and cute) as always, but I was expecting her fight with Okami to run a little longer. Still, there's lots of action and the usual HK goofiness (I liked the stuff between the thief and the little nerdy guy always trying to castrate him, particularly the butterfly knife scene), but you were right DM - more dramatic than Beauty Investigator for sure. I'll try and bang through Yes, Madam soon! (from the start, I hate going back to a movie halfway through after long breaks)

The New York Asian Film Fest has been sort of a bust for me. I saw four films, three of which were awful, one of which was amazing.

Kala was dubbed an Indonesian riff on Dark City by the festival, though that makes it sound a lot better than it is. In reality, it's a mix of noir and J-Horror produced for $600,000. The budget really hurts, as pretty much all of the gore is disguised and the noir aesthetic is merely window dressing. Also, one of the characters is a closeted homosexual and the other is narcoleptic. Just because.

Shamo is Soi Cheang's follow-up to Dog Bite Dog, a film I enjoyed despite its incessant nihilism. Shamo, a manga adaptation, wallows in depravity. It's about a boy who kills his parents, has a rough time in prison, and dreams of becoming a champion fighter. Kind of like a fucked-up Rambo, except you couldn't care less about the whiny, scumbag protagonist. For a film with no redeemable qualities, it isn't very shocking, and that's the entire reason you're watching it. But you've seen it all before, except it's never been so caked in glitz and glamour. Pass.

Like A Dragon is what passes for a Takashi Miike film these days. I think when he was pumping out more films, I was wary of truly criticizing him, rewarding competence merely because of his relentless consistency. Now he makes films less frequently, but they're sloppy as ever. Guy seriously needs an editor, because while he can shoot scenes well enough, he cannot for the life of him string them together. Like A Dragon is a loose adaptation of the Sega video game Yakuza, and it's kind of like Miike's Altman film, except you don't care about any of the characters and half the sub-plots go absolutely NOWHERE. Still, it has some interesting characters, like a Yakuza who is obsessed with baseball and a masochistic arms dealer. Not worth it, track down Blues Harp.

Now to the good:

Johnnie To's Sparrow might just be the best thing he's ever done, and it features not a single gun and only a single drop of blood. It's light fare, an expertly shot and staged 87-minute homage to the French New Wave featuring a kick-ass jazz score and a wonderful Simon Yam performance. It's about a gang of pickpockets who are visited by a femme fatale. That is all you need to know. Now go see it.

You know what, I really wasn't bothered by the overt referencing. Generally, that kind of things throws me off, but there's such a genuine love and affection for the material being referenced that it actually worked for me. And as you say, Ryu puts his references and his characters into interesting places. Overall, I wasn't too bothered by it, and yes, the Warriors reference was spectacular.

I also really liked the Election films. I think To is, frankly, an underappreciated director over here in the States, someone who even my Asian film loving friends aren't immediately familiar with. It's rare to see films that are as layered as his also boast minimal run times. Quite a gift, I'd say.

That's a real gem in Miike's body of work. I showed it to some friends a long time ago, and afterwards casually mentioned that it was by the same guy who did Ichi the Killer. They didn't believe me. Frankly, I love the film; it's one of many that display the kind of range that Miike really has. I tend to hear a lot of criticism from people regarding Miike and, say, Kitano, that suggests they're only capable of operating within the yakuza genre. Miike in particular catches a lot of heat from people I know for being a shock director of extremely weird and inaccessible films. A film like The Bird People can really turn that kind of nonsense around.

I never saw The Great Yokai War. I'll probably Netflix it sometime soon, now that I'm reminded of it.

SPL on region A Blu-ray this week
http://www.yesasia.com/us/spl-aka-sh...0-en/info.html

Chocolate has it's North American festival premiere in September
http://www.tiff08.ca/filmsandschedules/films/chocolate