asian recommendations

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nme666
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asian recommendations

Post by nme666 »

got a bit of a bug to try some asian stuff but there's so much out there and i'd like suggestions of what's the cream of the crop so i don't have to waste time on the junk.

i have ring & ring 2.

battle royale is on my list of 'to sees.' versus looks interesting.

what else.

thanks for the opinions.

ps - if there's a thread that already covers this, that someone's aware of, sorry and could ya link me?
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Post by Chris Slack »

Do you have a region free DVD player?

Audition - Pretty easy to find for rent, make sure you get the unrated version though.

Volcano High - Basically just a fighting movie, this Korean flick has some killer visuals and SFX

Shaolin Soccer - A must see sports/martial arts comedy

Dark Water - Great screepy stuff from the directoru of "Ring"

Junk - Good Jap zombie flick

Wild Zero - More jap zombies plus the mighty Guitar Wolf

Brother - Exiled yakuza in LA forms new interracial gang. Fairly Americanized but great regardless. Youc an rent this anywhere.

Can't think of anything else right now, work does that to me.
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Post by nme666 »

Originally posted by Chris
Do you have a region free DVD player?


yep.

thanks for the suggestions. i should've put audition on my 'to sees' list. i perused back a few pages in the forum and saw your dark water review and a couple other things.

just need a place to start. thanks.
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Post by Chris Slack »

Some other people should have some suggestions as well :)
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Post by DylanDog »

Daughter Of Darkness and Uzumaki are two of my all time favorites, along with the aforementioned Wild Zero. (Btw, I have the soundtrack for sale on Ebay, if anyone cares. end of spam.....yes, I'm broke. No LT, not so broke I'm selling my poster yet though! :D) For more zombie stuff, Stacy, Bio-Zombie and Bio-Cops are all cool. Another cool movie that I really liked, and that doesn't get mentioned too often, was Shikoku. Also check out The Isle, a pretty cool Korean flick.....
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Post by I am 138 »

Korea seems to be a good spot at the moment. The only dud I've pulled recently was The Record, and I've really enjoyed Nightmare, Momento Mori, Volcano High, and Attack the Gas Station.

Happiness of the Katakuris is great...actually, I mostly agree with Chris' list, except for Dark Water, which I haven't seen.

I reviewed a bit of Asian stuff on my site, and have some more releases in the rough draft review phase:

http://malcontent.topcities.com
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Post by Latte Thunder »

damn. everyone has mentioned all my faves already.

Korea has put out some decent stuff in the last couple of years.

Attack The Gas Station is extremely funny.

Volcano High School is like a live acttion video game. It's a little short on plot but it's funny, has great special effects and the fight scenes are exhillerating.

Shiri is a decent action movie, though I didn't think it was as great as everyone else who was hyping it thought it was and it suffers from some very serious continuity problems.

Tell Me Something was one that a lot of people seemed to like as well, but I really wasn't too keen on it.

One of the guys I work with here was telling me about a movie called The Resurrection of the Little Match girl that was a bomb in Korea, but is actually pretty good. I haven't seen it, so I can't speak on it.

Japan:

Wild Zero is a must see. Synapse is releasing a domestic version soon. But if you can't wait for that, thankfully the DVD has dropped in price to a reasonable $30.

Junk is like Reservoir Dogs meets Dawn of the Dead. It's a pretty fresh take on the zombie genre, even if the ending is a little foolish.

Happiness of the Katakuris isn't really a horror movie, but it's one of my recent favorites. It's a horror/comedy/musical and it's about as outrageous as movies get. The same director did Audition, Fudoh: The Next Generation, Dead Or Alive 1-3, Ichi The Killer, and a shitload of other crime/horror movies. All worth seeing.

Dark Water is by the director of Ringu and it's extremely good. There are parts of it that are genuinely frightening.

Bullet Ballet is a great movie. It's Shinya Tsukamoto so there are a lot of long, lingering shots of people doing nothing. It's artsy, but it's better than the rest of his stuff (which is also pretty good if you can tolerate it). Also check out Tokyo Fist if you dig this director.

Versus is virtually plotless, but from what I understand, the director intended it to be wall to wall action... and in my opinion they totally pull it off. There's lots of zombies getting chopped in half and all kinds of crazy fighting. It's pure balls, low budget style.

Pistol Opera is a remake of an old Yakuza movie called Branded To Kill. It's very artsy, but is awesome.

I should make the defacto mention of all things Godzilla. They release a new one every year in Japan and the last few have been really good.

There's also the Babycart movies. In my opinion, they're the ultimate pulp-samurai movies. There's 7 or 8 of them and they're all great.

Electric Dragon 8000v is extremely strange, but it has the same punk rock sensibility of Wild Zero. It's short, but it's like watching a live action manga.

I.K.U. is also on DVD now and if you don't mind a porno, it's soft core... but weird enough to fall into that category by circumstance. I ask you this, how many pornos have you seen with trippy digital special effects?

The Eko Eko Azarak movies are kind of cheesy, but on the whole very good. It's about a magic slinging schoolgirl and she always winds up fighting demons and shit.



Hong Kong

Full Time Killer was really good in terms of action

Time and Tide shouldn't be missed

The Storm Riders and A Man Called Hero make for good popcorn, martial arts flicks (even if most of the martial arts are CGI)

DO NOT MISS SHAOLIN SOCCER!!!!

There's also a new DVD with a restored print of Master of the Flying Guillotine if kung fu movies are your bag. It's one of the best I've ever seen... and I've seen a shitload of kung fu movies.

The Bride With White Hair is visually amazing, just stay away from it's sequel.

The Eye is creepy as hell.

The Young and Dangerous series is an awesome series of Triad movies. There's a long, complicated continuity that runs through all of them.

Story of Ricky is required viewing. It's so violent that it's hilarious.

damn... that's a long list.
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Post by nme666 »

JESUS..! a most sincere thanks to everyone. that's YEARS' worth of buying/renting (at my pace).

since there's godzilla fans... i'll throw in a plug for MY favorite 'wrestling guys in rubber suits' franchise: ULTRAMAN.

it's a shame they don't, at least, get r3 discs w/ english subs, like so many other releases. and, while i'm mentioning shames, it's too bad that 4kids didn't treat their translated scripts for um tiga a little more respectfully and faithfully as well as batting the show up and down in time slots. how can you expect to grab an audience if they never know when a show is ON? i'll put half the blame on kcpq.

mini-rant... sorry.
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Post by Muncher666 »

Good to see someone else mentioned Uzumaki.

The Untold Story is another unmissable Hong Kong flick.

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Post by Latte Thunder »

I totally forgot about Legend of the Sacred Stone.

It's about as unconventional as martial arts movies get seeing as how it's packed with big money special effects and the cast is entirely made of hand puppets. Sound weird? It is. It's also surprisingly good.

and since we're mentioning Cat.3 movies, Red To Kill ought to ruin your day. It's one of the most low class movies I've ever seen. The ending is depressing as hell.
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Post by beyond »

Oooof... You guys picked everything. :D

Chinese Ghoststory (muhaha!).
razorbackattack

Post by razorbackattack »

A few that I really like:

Japan:

Kairo
Uzumaki
The Ring
All the 90's Godzilla films(don't really like the latest ones)
Kakashi (creepy scarecrow film)
Battle Royale
Audition

Hong Kong:

Naked Killer
Story of Ricky
Bio-Zombie
Ebola Syndrome
Daughter of Darkness
Red To Kill
Brother of Darkness
Raped By An Angel
Seeding of a Ghost
Red Spell Spells Red
Black Magic 2
Escape From Brothel
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Post by ROBERT »

You guys listed all my recommendations except for The Rape After. A Wacked out HK horror film.
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Post by Nocturnaloner »

DEAD OR ALIVE <-- absofuckinglutely.

Wild Zero

Story of Ricky (Ricky-Oh)


If these movies do not entertain you, I'm going to come to your house and break all your Slayer albums.
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Post by Latte Thunder »

Originally posted by Nocturnaloner
If these movies do not entertain you, I'm going to come to your house and break all your Slayer albums.
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There's a movie I saw a trailer for a long time ago called The Returner from Japan that looked absolutely insane. I can't seem to find anything about it, though. There was also a new Ekin Cheng movie from Hong Kong that had him fighting vampires. I think Jackie Chan had something to do with it also. I can't remember the title of the top of my head.
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Post by Nocturnaloner »

Originally posted by Latte Thunder There's a movie I saw a trailer for a long time ago called The Returner from Japan that looked absolutely insane. [/B]


I remember that one too. Looked like a blast. Them there geeks at the Asian DVD Guide forums are saying things like this:

"Returner is a japanese movie starred by cool man Takeshi Kaneshiro. Is about a girl that travels back in time to meet Takeshi and together save the future, in a nutshell. It steals from a lot of different movies (Terminator in plot, ID4 and Matrix in style), but is cohesive and is the closest you get to an "event" movie in Japan. Good fun, great CGI, just don't expect anything brain-taxing. See the trailer and be converted :P"

http://www.returner.net/

Anyone here read Japanese? It seems to be "Now in Theaters".

Tom Araya gives you a deathly-metal shoutout, btw. It sounded painful.
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Post by DylanDog »

I can read a little, but not enough to help. You're better off using a translator. This one is pretty good:

http://www.ocn.ne.jp/translation/

Just put in the URL and pick the second option.......It's still not perfect, but you'll get the gist, and it beats Altavista's translator.
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Post by Nocturnaloner »

Thanks! I got what I wanted to know:

"DVD2 type of "Returner" is simultaneous sale from March 7, 2003!!"

I'll be checking out cdjapan around that time then...
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Post by Pentagrahamcracker »

Shôjo no harawata (or Entrails of a Virgin). Japan. The cover alone is worth the price.

http://monsterhunter.coldfusionvideo.co ... irgin.html
http://www.kfccinema.com/reviews/horror ... eauty.html

The Fox with Nine Tails. Korea. This movie is based on the Korean "fox girl" legend.

http://www.dighkmovies.com/v2/106/106.html

Asian horror movie reviews:
http://www.mandiapple.com/snowblood/index2.htm

I found an underground Asian cinema magazine at Barnes and Noble in Bellevue. There was a big article on Ichi the Killer.

I still don't understand the ending of Tell Me Something.

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Post by beyond »

I watched Bunman: The Untold Story yesterday. Man, talk about a fucked-up movie. I had to fastforward during the rapescene, it never seemed to end... Then the killing of the entire family... I felt like shit afterwards.
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Post by Latte Thunder »

A lot of those cat3 movies will do that to you.

I don't really like them for that reason. I've seen quite a few and none of them have ever really done much for me.
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Post by -deathboy- »

try this:
http://www.mandiapple.com/snowblood/ginipiggu.htm

and if you like graphic novels. check out anything by hideshi hino. especially ~the panorama of hell~ one of my all time favorite pieces of literature.
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Post by Pentagrahamcracker »

Originally posted by -deathboy-
try this:
http://www.mandiapple.com/snowblood/ginipiggu.htm

and if you like graphic novels. check out anything by hideshi hino. especially ~the panorama of hell~ one of my all time favorite pieces of literature.
Um, I already posted that link, fag!

Check out the Battle Angel Alita graphic novels too.

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Post by -deathboy- »

Originally posted by Pentagrahamcracker
Um, I already posted that link, fag!

Check out the Battle Angel Alita graphic novels too.

-Katja


D'oh ! was at work and not payin attention. and i'm not a fag... i swear i was just doin research in my sisters panties....:eek:
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Post by Nocturnaloner »

Originally posted by Latte Thunder
I totally forgot about Legend of the Sacred Stone.

It's about as unconventional as martial arts movies get seeing as how it's packed with big money special effects and the cast is entirely made of hand puppets. Sound weird? It is. It's also surprisingly good.


I just got this in last night. I agree. After a while, you do start to forget that you're watching puppets. Certain bits have a Brothers Quay-drop-acid-in-Chinatown kinda feel. Lots of blood, compressed air, and CG. I also like how they only used human stand-ins in a couple of long shots, except for the closeups of running feet(!). Very different, and worth a look. Also, if there were kids anywhere near me (perish the thought), I'd warp their minds with this. Thunderbirds would never quite be the same.
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