Definately see Ikiru if you get the chance. Also Stray Dog and Red Beard are very good.

As far as Japanese cinema goes I generally prefer the films made in the black & white days (particularly when compared to the often bleak films made today). There is a veritable goldmine of great stuff to be found from this era if you look deep enough. And few have contributed to it as much as Yasujiro Ozu.

All of his films are good. There's simply no such thing as an Akira Kurosawa film not worth watching. Some of my personal favorites include:

Madadayo
Ran
Yume
Kagemusha
Sanjuro
Ikiru
Rashomon
No Regrets for My Youth
Drunken Angel

I found that very fake, honestly. The blood was all orange, like some carrot juice mixed with flour to thicken it. So far the best prop for fake blood I've seen is the cherry flavoring used in Dairy Queen blizzards, as when I worked there I accidently sprayed myself with it and the manager immediately called the ambulance.

Yeah I personally didn't like Suicide Circle. It didn't put its message out clear enough and I don't think multiple views would help to make the message any clearer. What exactly do the kids want people to "connect" to and to find about? This film needed more dialogue and less "scary" scenes (which were pretty pathetically done. The security guard in the hotel wasn't very convincing).



I also rented from Rogers Video:

Seven Samurai by Akira Kurosawa after hearing so much "hype" and good reviews.

Millenium Actress (an anime, I know), and it seems Bigblah gave it quite a good reception.

Thanks for suggestions from those who suggested. Getting Ikiru and Rashomon now ~

The trailer for the Il Mare Remake is out...
http://pdl.stream.aol.com/aol/us/mov..._wsdert_dl.mov

starring Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves.
Glad I saw the original first.

Yeah, i saw that the other day. I really wish hollywood would stay away from already great asian films. I wonder what the remakes of Old Boy, My Sassy Girl, Windstruck, and Daisy will be like.

There's going to ne a remake windstruck? i thought defiling My Sassy Girl was enough. remakes are nice in the fact it gives another perspective, but most of the time i think remakes are just poorly constructed.

i do however enjoy modern remakes of older movies, as i have a hard time tolerating the washed-out colors and primitive special effects.

But it's dumb when remakes are made because western audiences don't like reading subtitles or seeing foreign faces. Especially when they don't really acknowledge the original.

Just saw Oldboy today. Great fucking movie. The english dub is actually very well done. Except for Mido's voice, which was kind of annoying.



I don't know if anyone else has seen it in english, but was that Crispin Freeman voicing Lee Woo-Jin? The guy who played the dentist sounded very familiar too.

Haven't been watching Asian films for a very long time. So I've got tons of catching up to do. The last one I caught was "Perhaps Love" by Peter Chan. It's essentially a "musical within a musical" about unrequited love. The plot is pretty simple but works very nicely in exploring, broadway style, the inner struggles of the three lead characters played by Jacky Cheung, Zhou Xun and Takeshi Kaneshiro.

Cheung and Zhou are fantastic actors. Cheung plays the role of a melancholic director with extreme finesse, but I was more surprised by how good Zhou was. Granted she doesn't quite have the same vocal powers as Cheung during the musical numbers, the doe-eyed Zhou captures the innocence and fragility of her character very well. Not surprised that she won a best actress accolade at the recent Hong Kong film awards. I was rather disappointed with Kaneshiro at several points. He can't quite seem to detach himself from the pretty boy label, except for the flashback sequences which I thoroughly enjoyed. He doesn't emote very well for the most part. That and his character was given some really strange moping scenes.

The movie does have its flaws. Some of the musical sequences are a little bit overdone. I really didn't like Kaneshiro's singing. And there were some situations/relationships I felt could have been further developed on. While not an excellent film, "Perhaps Love" is still very enjoyable and touching, leaving a strong bitter-sweet after taste. The great visuals and sets certainly add to the experience as well. Definitely worth a recommendation.

I'll watch it... but not in the theatres. No way am I gonna pay $10 to watch an American remake, I'll wait a year or watch a bootleg of it. I already have a passion for the original. And no way the remake can top those variations of the ending song, "must say goodbye" I think it's called.

The "Black and White" days ended in the mid 1950's in Japan, when there was a huge shift toward color outside of a few mavericks like Akira Kurosawa, and films like Double Suicide, which kept producing black and white movies into the late 1960's.

Anyway, the 1950's and the early 1960's are often referred to as the "Golden Age of Japanese Cinema", so you are hardly alone in that feeling. Personally, I just enjoy all of the movie made in the Showa era (up to the 1989) over the current crop of films out there, beyond some exceptions like Kamakize Girls and of course anything by Miyazaki.

New Hayao Miyazaki film to be announced May 5th I think.

I forgot if I mentioned this before, although I know if so, no one answered so... did anyone see Miike's Imprint yet?

yay. for new hayao miyazaki film.

O_o Really? Man, and he said he was going into retirement after Princess Mononoke, and now look where we are. I'm not complaining though, great news. Got a link for where it was mentioned?

Awesome, thanks for the link!

Not a problem. Tonari no totoro to-toro.

Watched Lady Vengeance a couple weeks ago...not bad, but definitely not as good (i.e. brutal) as the first two in the trilogy. It was a little held back by the "female touch," in my opinion. I actually almost found myself rooting for Oh Dae-Su the bad guy instead.

Speaking of SFLV, did anyone enjoy spotting the cameos? It was awesome to see Shin Ha-Kyun and Song Kang-Ho as the hired assassins.

Yeah, but I only spotted two (the ones in your av/sig :) ).

Gang Hye-Jung is a newscaster.
The actress who played Woo-Jin's sister is one of the girls in the "Reaction to Geum-Ja" montage. I believe she actually says "Kind Geum-Ja!"
The actor who played Mr. Han plays the fervent religious who sells out Geum-Ja to Mr. Baek.

Weird, will have to look out for those on the next viewing.

Anyway, watched A Tale of Two Sisters yesterday. The ending was surprising, although to me it just came out of nowhere. It struck me as sort of a cross between Fight Club and The Sixth Sense, but it didn't really have the "OHHHHHH, it all makes sense now" effect of either of those movies. The production and soundtrack were beautiful, though. Will definitely have to watch it again sometime.

I the only one who feels My Sassy Girl has nothing really going for it, at all? It seems like the typical romantic comedy, except it's in Korean. If it was the exact same movie, except in English, I doubt anyone would give a shit about it.