Asian Cinema

[ertmann|CPH]

Recomend Asian movies (No Anime please - do another tread for that)

I'll start with 3, but ill probably post some more


JSA - Joint Security Area
Korea, 2001
Chan-Wook Park

This in a interresting story about friendship. The scene is set in the borderland between North and South Korea, called the "Joint Security Area", where a young swiss official is dispached to investigate an incident between North and South Korean border guards. It not really an action movie, but you're never left bored. And the story twists all the time, leaving you wondering exactly what the hell was happened there. Won the Golden Bear award in the Berlin Film Festval, and is the most expensive Korean Movie to date with a budget of 30 million dollars.


RAN
Japan. 1985
Akira Kurosawa

For outsiders, Akira Kurosawa's movies are really hard to swallow, but this i think is his most accessable film. partly because it's in colour, partly because it's essentially a refilming of Shakespears King Lair, but set in 16th century Japan. Very few instructors comes close to the visual genious of Kurosawa, and this film is not only an excellent film, but also a great gateway to his other works, like the seven Samurai, And Kagemusha - the shadow warrier.


Dark Water
Japan, 2001
Hideo Nakata

Hideo Nakata is the same instructor, that made the original version of "The Ring", unlike most hollywood directors, he understands how to make a movie scary without using massive amounts of fake blood, and computer effect's. sort of the subtle psycolical scare that made Hitchcock famous.
The movie is set in an old, worn down building, where a single mother lives with her child. she has a case running in the justice system with the daughter's father, over who should have custedy of the daughter (a really nice psycolical twist), so she can't tell anyone, when strange things start's to happen in the building, as she's affraid it will make people think she's crazy, leading to her loosing her child.

My friend i saw this movie with in the cinema, was affraid to turn on the water for a week after seing this movie. IMO one of the best horrer movies ever made