R-Point [Korean LE 2-Disc Box] (product link) Horror / Thriller I really enjoyed this movie! Yes, the story in itself is not that original, but the film is competently directed, and it's genuinely creepy! All the different elements (sound, image, even the location itself) are well put together and create a really chilling atmosphere! Highly recommended!
King Kong [1933] [2-Disc Set] (product link) Action/Adventure / Science Fiction One of the seminal movies of the history of cinema, this is great fun! And it has a giant gorilla kicking the ass out of a tyrannosaurus, so what more could a guy want?
Ivan's Childhood (product link) Drama / War A great movie about memory, war, and its effects on one's life. Some of the scenes are just beautiful, and Tarkovksky's use of some of the images, evoking the happier times of childhood with the present bleakness of wartime, are so poetic.
Fires On The Plain (product link) War / Drama An agonizing portrait of the lives of a group of Japanese soldiers stranded in the Philippines during WWII. Great cinematography and an unflinching story make this undoubtedly one of the finest war films ever made!
Devil's Backbone (product link) Drama / Horror I didn't know anything about this movie, so I was totally surprised as to how good it is!
It's very well made, and it's somewhat surprising, considering the recent focus on Spanish horror films (e.g. "Rec", "The Orphanage"...), that this didn't receive that much attention! Anyhow, this is very highly recommended.
AGREE?
READER COMMENTS
AUTHOR
Y
The super high quality of this film caught me off guard as well. Definitely recommended.
Vengeance Is Mine [1979] (product link) Drama / Thriller Very interesting movie about a serial killer. The movie itself is not moralist, but a surprisingly detached and somewhat humorous tale of primitive coexisting with the modern.
Portrait Of The Wind (product link) Crime / Drama Very interesting revenge drama, eschewing all the blood and guts, and concentrating on the feeling of the main character. It's subtle and poised, and I enjoyed it greatly.
Hiruko The Goblin (product link) Horror / Comedy Tsukamoto's foray into teenage horror films. I actually had a kick watching this movie! Forget mechanic drill penises and existential angst, this a simple and straightforward B-movie (probably Tsukamoto's most conventional film to date), with a thin plot, and even thinner characters!! Oh, and don't believe all that "surreal cross between David Lynch and David Cronenberg" thing, this is a simple, funny, horror-comedy!!
Bright Future (product link) Drama Uau!! Really great film!!! Melancholic and perplexing, it's not a psychological thriller, like some of the director's most famous films, but a rather compelling drama, with good performance. And, though at first I wasn't aware of it, it's quite a resounding experience, which sinks in more deeply than you’d expect.
2046 [Chinese Limited Edition] (product link) Drama / Art Probably the best movie from Wong Kar Wai, so far. Everything is top notch: the story, the music, the actors, the images (some are simply stunning!).
The Boys From Fengkuei
One of Hou's first films. Despite the roughness around the edges, we see his style emerging in the history of four childhood friends, and their passage to adulthood.
A Summer's at Grandpa's
One of my favourite of Hou's films, it's a simple and bittersweet story about two kids (brother and sister) and their summer in their grandpa's house, in the country, far from the city.
A Time to Live and a Time to Die
The first "acclaimed" masterpiece of Hou Hsiao-Hsien, this is a strongly autobiographical account of the lives of Chinese migrants in Taipei in the 40's. Episodic and detached, it focuses on the generation gap on a family of said migrants.
Dust in the Wind
Also one of my favorites by Hou, it's again a story about migration, and culture shock. Wan and his girlfriend move from the tiny village where they live to Taipei, to find better jobs, but soon feel the strains of the new world they discover.
The Puppetmaster
This is a film about the childhood and early adulthood of Taiwanese Puppet Master Li Tien-Lu. Strongly reflexive, and interspersed with footage from his puppet and stage presentations, this is a very layered movie, reflecting such themes as immigration, art, and life.
Good Men Good Woman
A serious reflection on life and its turmoils, this is also a very interesting film, and one where Hou's style is at its most distinctive.
Goodbye South, Goodbye
A film centered around the underclass of Taiwan, it tells the story of a group of friends, who are more or less gangsters, and more or less shady businessman, and their troubles and tribulations.
Flowers of Shangai
Set in the nineteenth century Shanghai Brothels (the Flower Houses), this is a very beautiful film about love, servitude, and the correlations of power between those who live and serve and those who "attend" the houses.
Hanging Garden (product link) Drama Great film about family life! Loved the cinematography, and the story! An interesting look at family life, and at its troubles and tribulations (especially tribulations).
Dead End Run (product link) Action/Adventure / Thriller Another great movie by Teruo Ishii. It's similar to “Electric Dragon 80.000 V”, although this time we have three different stories, with the common point of all of them starting with the character running from someone, and ending up in a dead end (literal and metaphorical). Another similarity is the fact that the stories are told mainly through editing and music, with sparse dialog. The music is great, and I highly recommend this to anyone who enjoyed "Electric Dragon".
Electric Dragon 80,000 V (product link) Action/Adventure / Science Fiction I enjoyed this movie a lot! Is one hell of a cinematic ride, with intense visuals and a potent soundtrack! The story is pretty straightforward but is told with an amazing style!
Camel(s) (product link) Art / Drama Excellent film from the director of "Motel Cactus". Both movies, however, couldn't be more different: whereas "Motel Cactus" has colorful, striking cinematography, this is filmed in black and white, in a minimalist sort of way; whereas "Motel Cactus" has a multitude of characters, and respective plots, this one follows a couple through a couple of days; and where "Motel Cactus" was a movie about love, this is a movie about loneliness and unhappiness. All in all, another great Jorean film!
Time (product link) Drama / Romance A movie about beauty and youth, and its influences in man/woman relationships.
The director, however, doesn't delve too deeply in the sociological or ideological issues of this theme, concentrating instead on showing the personal obsessions of the main character. The film is not without its flaws (mainly the weak characterization of the main couple), but its minimalist style and lyrical images make this one one of my personal favorites.
Motel Cactus (product link) Drama / Erotica I really enjoyed this movie, one of the best Korean movies I've seen recently. The story is interesting and the cinematography striking (although I was kinda' expecting that, since the cinematographer is Chistopher Doyle). I guess that it has some parallels with the movies of Wong Kar Wai (it makes me wonder how much of Wong Kar Wai's style was influenced by Christopher Doyle, or vice-versa), but I strongly recommend it anyway!
Late Spring [3-Disc Set] (product link) Drama / Art Probably my favorite film by Ozu, and the only one I've had the pleasure of watching in a actual cinema (this was the only film by Ozu that ever received commercial distribution here in Portugal. I saw it at a film festival). All of its themes are here: generation gap, changes in society, loneliness, and the separation of the family, treated with its trademark style, honed almost to perfection!
The Burmese Harp (product link) War / Drama This is an excellent movie, and problably one of the most beautiful movies that I've seen. It's beautifully filmed, and the score (except for the choral singing, but I think that's metaphoric) is perfect. The story concerns one man's dealing with the aftermath of the war (a war in wich he participated), mainly all the death and abandon that is the direct result of the violence inherent to war itself. The way he finds to deal with it is quite unexpected, especially for those around him, including his company.
An excellent film that I enthusiastically recommend!
Rikyu (product link) Drama This is one of the last films of Hiroshi Teshigahara (he only made one more after this one, "Basara: The Princess Go"), and it was made after a "pause" of 17 years (in the meantime he was directing an Ikebana school). It's not as experimental as his previous films but has a slower, more meditative pace. It's about the relationship that forms between a Buddhis priest and a shogun, and between the different lives of each: flower arrangements and tea ceremonies for the priest; war and political schemes for the shogun.
In itself, the film is quite beautiful, and I was somewhat surprised by the differences between this and his previous films. Recommended!!
Chichi To Kuraseba [LE 2-Disc Box] (product link) Drama This movie was quite a surprise for me, since I haven't seen anything by Kazuo Kuroki (I first heard of him as the director of "Silence Has No Wings", apparently one of the best japanese movies ever!!). So, I was quite surprised: the movie is beautiful, a deceptively simple story of the relationship between a father and daughter. On a larger view, it's also a movie about surviving the atom bomb. The two main leads are fabulous, totally convincing, and portraying the father/daughter relationship with warm and empathy. The images are beautiful too: I could almost feel the heat of those afternoons...
Tokyo Mary Gold (product link) Romance / Drama A movie about loneliness, and, on a certain level, about becoming independent, filmed with lyrical beauty. And, although the story itself is simple and pretty straightforward, the execution is sublime, heightening certain scenes to sheer visual poetry. This was my introduction to the work of Jun Ichikawa, and what an introduction!!
Cafe Lumiere (product link) Drama / Romance A quiet and meditative film about urban loneliness. It's an homage to Ozu, and quite an homage, since, from what I knom from Ozu, "Cafe Lumiere" refers to the same "restrainement" of emotions, and emotions more expressed through silence rather than dramatic (or sometimes melodramatic) expressionism. Another feeling that I've experienced watching this movie (and others by Hou Hsiao-Hsien) was a sense that my mind was..."wandering"--I mean drifting, as if I was at a cafe table, or taking the train with the characters, watching the events in the movie unfold in front of me.
All in all, I adored this movie, and I think Hou Hsiao-Hsien is one of the greatest filmmakers ever.
I first watched this movie a long time ago, when I was starting to discover cinema in general, and Asian cinema in particular. I remember, in that particular week of having seen two movies that completely stunned me ("Chungking Express" and this, "The River"), leaving a strong desire to learn more about those directors and, in general, Asian cinema. Needless to say, Tsai Ming-Liang has become one of my favorite directors (as well as Wong Kar-Wai, for that matter)... So, why did this movie stun me? Well, at the time, I had never seen a film like this: carefully shot, deliberately paced, and thematically relevant. This movie about the disintegration of the nuclear family in modern society managed to encapsulate perfectly all the emotional coldness, and emptiness, that marked the family of the movie. Only when the son becomes severely ill (because of pollution) does the family reunite, for a while, while still aknowledging that the distance between them is too far. This is filmed in a way to make us feel the emotional detachment of the characters, as well as their inherent loneliness. Without a doubt, a modern masterpiece.
I liked this movie a lot. Don't get me wrong, I'm not usually a fan of tearjerkers, or those teenage love stories that seem so much in fashion nowadays. And yet, this movie completely captivated me: it's very well executed, superbly interpreted (and, I add, surprinsingly so, given the young age of the two main actors), and it has a frankness that caught me totally by surprise! The whole movie is actually quite funny. There is a humorous stream that runs along the movie, popping up at the right time, but without ruining the more melancholic or more serious parts. It's a totally honest film, showing us the development of a relationship between two very different people, with all that comes along: laughing, having fun, sharing intimacy, having doubts (and in the particular case of this movie, shame). We stick with these characters, reviewing many of our own thougts and memories, finding things in common and others different, understanding some of the feelings that they're experiencing, because we've experienced them ourselves... and if the end of the movie seems, initially, tough to accept, ultimately we end up accepting it; because we understand that they move along with their lives, and that that doesn't means that their relantionship was futile, or easily forgettable...
Rouge (product link) Drama / Ghost This is a very unusual film, despite the initial impression that it's going to be either a period love story or a simple ghost story. Instead, the movie is a melancholic and somewhat sad reflection of the passing of time, not only in the modernization of the city and the landscapes, but also in the way people live their lives and their relationships. I also liked the way the film develops, mixing the "modern" part of the story with the "past" part, intensifying that feeling of "things gone by" that pervades the movie. Higly recommended
Away With Words [Summit] (product link) Art I REALLY liked this movie! Its combination of poetic moments and experimental editing makes it quite diferent from what you would expect for a first feature film. I guess I liked it so much because I understood some of the feelings expressed by the characters of the movie--after all, who hasn't questioned whether the choices that he/she made were the right ones? Who hasn't felt the urge to abandon our daily routine and escape to somewhere else? And yes, I LOVE beer!
To anyone who likes experimental cinema, I recommend this one.
Maborosi [2-Movie Set] (product link) Drama A subdued and thoughtful film about life and death. Exquisitely photographed and edited, with the simplest of images resonating profoundly. If you like films with a silent and contemplating mood, then I strongly recommend this one.
"Goodbye Dragon Inn" is one of my favourite movies by Tsai Ming Liang, where he, with is usual slow-paced and reflexive style, builds a film about the end of cinema, or, more accuretly, about the end of going to the cinema, the end of watching cult movies in traditional venues. In this film, most of the characters (i.e. the spectators of the final session of "Dragon Inn" in a cinema that's going to be demolished) all go to the cinema not to watch the movie, but to shelter from the pouring rain, or to look for gay encounters. In the almost empty room, few are actually watching the movie. Parallel to this, there's an understated love story between the projectionist and the ticket girl, told with great simplicity, with the rain as a constant bacground.
"The Missing" is a movie by Lee Kang-Sheng, the main actor of basically all of Tsai Ming Liang's movies. In this, his directorial debut, he makes quite an impressive feature, wich draws heavily on Tsai Ming Liang's cinematic style.
Pom Poko (product link) Animation / Fantasy Funny little movie about two groups of raccoons who struggle against human development, and consequent environmental destruction. The political and ecological message is pretty clear, but for me, the most interesting thing were the Tanukis themselves: a rowdy and joyful bunch who persist even in adverse conditions.
Kichiku Dai Enkai (product link) Horror / Thriller Brutal Banquet of the Beasts indeed! Loads of violence and gore, with the story focusing on the very frail inner relationships between a group of radical left-wing students.
Spring In My Hometown (product link) Drama A slow-paced movie about the effects of the war on a small village, told through the eyes of two small children. Very good cinematography, and some beautiful long takes.
Final Take (product link) Drama / Art I like this movie, and the way it tries to recreate the 30's, during the transition from silent films to talkies. And I had a laugh watching "Yasujiro Ogata" directing "Floating Weeds" (one of the classics of Japanese Cinema is "A Story of Floating Weeds" directed by "Yasujiro Ozu")!
The Suspended Step Of The Stork (product link) Drama / Romance Symbolic and higly reflexive, this is a movie about a group of people (mainly migrants, but also political refugees) forgotten by the government. Reminiscent of the cinematic style of Andreii Tarkovsky (Theo Angelopoulos has been said to carry the flame that Tarkovsky lighted), this is a slow-paced and meditative reflection on the lives of those who don't belong to any place.
Seance (product link) Horror / Thriller Another good film by Kiyoshi Kurosawa. Definitely he's great at creating the right environment. Mysterious and subtle, this is a movie that won't leave you indifferent!
Tokyo Trash Baby (product link) Drama / Romance A movie about the search for love (or at least some semblance of it) through the waste of consumerism society. I thought that the whole idea of a girl rifling through the garbage of the guy she loves (or thinks she loves) to get to know him better was funny and original. Unfortunely, as she finds out, it's not enough to eat the same cereals or use the same shampoos to love (or be loved by) someone…
Charisma (product link) Drama / Mystery An interesting film, wich reminded me a lot of "Woman of the Dunes" by Hiroshi Teshigahara. It shares some points, like the reflection of the individual in society, and the conflict between different ideological groups within that same society, but the atmosphere of this film is different, and so its conclusion.
In the end, this is a rewarding film that keeps you guessing until its final moments.
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