[detritus]

anyone have a top 10 list of Asian Films?

here is mine...

Oldboy
Audition
Hero
Battle Royale
Five Deadly Venoms
Enter the Dragon
Sympathy for Mr Vengeance
Versus
Infernal Affairs
House of Flying Daggers

[Shinrei]

In no particular order:

Battle Royale
Juon
House of Flying Daggers (entitled "Lovers" in Japan)
Hero
Fist of Legend
Drunken Master
Trick (basically a long episode based on the awesome tv series)

Hmmm, I'm having trouble remembering titles off the top of my head. Get back to ya laterz.

[Binder of Demons]

Hard to put these in order too.

Infernal Affairs - The brilliant inspiration for The Departed
Hard Boiled, or The Killer (i enjoyed them both when i saw them). Good John Woo action movies with Chow Yun Fat before they both went Hollywood.
There were some other great action movies from that era of hong kong cnema which i saw but i can't remember the tiles anymorw.

Yojimbo - One of Kurosawa's samurai movies, later was the template for A FIST FULL OF DOLLARS. Basically about a clever Ronin who plays a coupe of rival gangs against each other. Has been imitated too many times to count.
Rashomon - Another Kurosawa classic. In the movie, a woman is raped and her husband is killed. We then see 4 different versions of what happened from each defendant. Which is true? Again, this movie has been copied many many times since.
Akahige (a.k.a. REDBEARD) - Another Kurosawa movie, this time a drama about a brash young surgeon forced to do his internship with a "simple" country doctor. It's a lonnngggg movie, but I think it is a masterpiece.

you may have guessed I'm a bit of a Kurosawa fan.

Really enjoyed HERO as well. Good action movie.
there are several other dramas which i have seen and really enjoyed but i'm damned if i can remember the titles.

Old Boy is great too.

On a lighter note, A Chinese Ghost Story was entertaining.

Can't remember names of other. Channel 4 in the UK used to put on a chinese movie season every few years and they showed most of these. Great viewing.

[drinksinbars]

Cant say ten movies off bat, so just give my favourite ones for the various styles of asian cinema.

Classics :- seven samurai - all time greatest asian movie in my opinion. amazing.
mention - any kurasawa movie deserves a spot.

Twisted :- old boy - wow that one scene in the hallway is just astoundingly good and the premise builds on preivious vengenace.
mention - audition EEK!!!

martial arts :- ong bak - no plot to speak of, but amazing fight scenes.
mention - choclat, hero, police story (any early early jackie chan especialy the bloopers)

anime :- akira. nuff said.
mention :- ghost in the shell.

horror :- The Ring. shit yer pants movie. first time i saw it was late ngiht channel four asian ghorror season when i was like 17 coming home from the pub, i thought i was going to die.
mention - the ring 2.

Action :- battle royale, vastly superior to its sequel and fairly true to the novel, an epic film that really pushed boundaries.
special mention - early john woo chow yun fat movies, most especially the killer, but hard boiled is pretty bad ass as well.

war movies :-brotherhood tae guk gi - a stunning korean movie about north and south korean war, amazing.
special mention - hidden fortress.

[dktorode]

Any of you seen THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE WEIRD yet?
Its a new and i think only been released in asia as of yet.

Im sure it is going to knock peoples socks off.

This post has been edited by dktorode: 14 January 2009 - 11:15 AM

[Anomander Rake]

I guess you only want east asian films, not bollywood stuff.

In no particular order:

Battle Royale - very good, the second thought did suck.

Azumi 1 & 2, 1 of course was better, but an enjoyable watch once the action gets started. Surprised no-one has mentioned this yet.

Bichunmoo, very good film. There seemed to be a lot cut out to make it 1.5 hrs long which is the prefer duration for a Korean movie, and even though I got the 2 disc special edition version, they said they tried to get the deleted scenes, but the film producers etc didn't know where the films where etc.

Hero, I don't think I need to say much for that.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon , I say this one because it was the one that really brought the WU-Fi to the west in a big way.

House of Flying Daggers

Warriors of Heaven and Earth , The music was errie esp for the bad guy.

Internal Affairs, funnily enough I saw this because they had it at the video shop where I used to rent films from. So wasn't too surprised with the plot to The Departed.

Arahan, I thought this was hilarious. A very good martial arts comedy.

The Returner , Watch this a long long time ago, and remembered enjoying it.

There are others, but can't recall all the names. I've left out Anime movies.

This post has been edited by Anomander Rake: 14 January 2009 - 11:51 AM

[Trotts]

Dont know that I have 10

But Battle Royale was certainly an awesome movie

Drunken Master was good too, really really love Shaolin Soccer, I thought that was a hilarious movie.

Ong Bak, another movie I really enjoyed

[Aptorian]

Has no one mentioned Hardboiled yet? Truly awesome John Woo film where every gun has a thousand bullets and a million people get shot... AT LEAST!

[Coco with marshmallows]

lessee....

Arahan - its damn funny.

Versus - its insanity of a type that Sam Raimi can't achieve anymore (instead, he makes Spiderman 3. Pillock)

Ong-Bak - lets face it, its brilliant

A Better Tomorrow 2 - IMNSHO, John Woo and Chow Yun Fat's finest collaboration. Sure, Hard-boiled and the killer are both good, but in this film Chow plays the previously unmentioned
identical twin brother of his character from the first film - what's not to love?

Drunken Master - Chan's finest. BTW, you know he got the blooper reel idea from Burt Reynolds? true story, he did cannonball run and saw the end cut and thought it was a good idea.

Battle Royale - a brilliantly original idea and book gets transferred well to film. Classic.


hmmmm..... will update this list with the remaining four when i've had a chance to think.

On a side note - I don't consider Enter the Dragon to be an asian film. American director, writer, producer and stars = hollywood movie in my mind.

[detritus]

Great stuff. I dont know how I forgot Kurosawa. Seven Samurai, Yojimbo and Ran got me into Asian flicks.... I'm an idiot.
I love the Azumi flicks and Ong Bak too. Asian cinema is great isnt it?

This post has been edited by mandog: 16 January 2009 - 02:45 AM

[Apocalypse Now]

1. Tokyo Story - Yasukiro Ozu
2. Seven Samurai - Akira Kurowsawa
3. Pather Panchali - Satyajit Ray
4. Ikiru - Akira Kurosawa
5. Yi Yi - Edward Yang
6. Rashoman - Akira Kurosawa
7. Ugetsu monogatari - Mizoguchi
8. In the Mood for Love - Wong Kar Wai
9. Ran - Kurosawa
10. Throne of Blood - Kurosawa

[flea]

Apocalypse Now, on Jan 16 2009, 04:13 PM, said:

1. Tokyo Story - Yasukiro Ozu
2. Seven Samurai - Akira Kurowsawa
3. Pather Panchali - Satyajit Ray
4. Ikiru - Akira Kurosawa
5. Yi Yi - Edward Yang
6. Rashoman - Akira Kurosawa
7. Ugetsu monogatari - Mizoguchi
8. In the Mood for Love - Wong Kar Wai
9. Ran - Kurosawa
10. Throne of Blood - Kurosawa

Awesome list--thank you, since there are a few I haven't seen.

Another great, though rarely seen, Kurosawa: Dodeskaden (sp?).

Classic Japanese cinema is a wonder. But then I'm an old fart around here. Don't forget that Seven Samurai was remade as The Magnificent Seven, a lesser, though still excellent film, and that The Hidden Fortress is the main inspiration for Star Wars.

I have an awesome Japanese poster for Seven Samurai.

This post has been edited by flea: 17 January 2009 - 04:28 PM