Asian Cinema Thread

Fulltime Killer was very good. I put it up there with Infernal Affairs as some of the best to come out of that part of the world.

A Better Tomorrow is one of my favorites. Chow Yun Fat is great in both those movies.

The latest flick I watched was Kill Zone which was good. Not as good as BT I&II or FTK, but it is worth a rental.

A better tomorrow(1&2) and Infernal Affairs(1, 2&3) would have be my top two.

+1, more specifically, A better tomorrow 1 and Infernal Affair 2 are great.
stephen chow's movies during the 90s are hilarious
Then there are a bunch of movies made by Feng Xiaogang, such as JiaFangYifang (too lazy to look up english translation), a world without thieves, and FeiChengWuYao are amazing movies, but they aren't too popular outside of mainland China.

Check out Thirst, it recently came out on DVD. I highly recommend it. It's by the director who made Oldboy (Vengeance trilogy).

Some of Zhang Yimou's early works are also really artistic and tasteful, especially Raise the Red Lantern and Red Sorghum.

I hate Zhang Yimou's movies with the exception of "To Live", which is a brilliant alternation of the original novel. His old moviies are all about women being used, surpressed and mistreated in the old chinese society. It's fine if he made one or two , but he made about 5 or 6 of them... then his newer movies, like Hero and House of flying daggers are just trying to break box office records. they are hollywood-like big budget films with a bunch of super Chinese movie stars,

Chan-wook Park's revenge triology is definitely worth checking out as well. One of the most memorable japanese movie i watched is "Survive Style 5+"

I don't like his new movies. But the ones that I listed I like. They actually reflect the lives of those who lived in the specific time periods. I just think they are tasteful.

+1
To live was actually the first film I saw in a cinema, and arguably his best work. For some reason I've still yet to see raise the red lantern, which I hear alot about. I think there are a couple decent ones sandwiched in between his old and new films, like shanghai triad, the road home, and not one less. I think all three are definitely watchable, however depressing and sentimental they tend to be. Anything after hero should be avoided, unless you enjoy mindless action, millions of dudes killing each other, and needlessly confusing plots.

+1, maybe just oldboy actually, the other two are definitely harder to enjoy, especially if you dont know korean.

OP seems to really like the asian action/thrillers, IMO though I think the strength of chinese movies, as a national cinema lies more in dramas and comedies. Two fairly popular titles I'd recommend would be Ba Wang Bie Ji and Yin Shi Nan Nu.

I like Takeshi Kitanos' film alot, especially Hana-bi and Kikujirô no natsu, more depth comparing to his early yakuza films, which aren't bad for entertainment.

I found his somewhat recent work "Glory to the Filmmaker" oddly amusing as well.