The Asian Film Thread

And since we're talking about Oldboy, Sympathy for Mr Vengeance and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, the two other "episodes" of the vengeance trilogy by Chan-wook Park are really worth a watch or two (...or 5).

Last asian movies I saw were "Tom yum goong " (they call it "Ongbak 2" and I still wonder why) which was a waste of time except for 1 or 2 nice fights. Scenario, acting, directing, everything was lame (the scenario is even worse than Ong Bak, which is a little revolution by itself).
On the other hand : "Sha Po Long" with Sammo Hung, Donnie Yen and Wu Jin was astonishing. The first part of the movie was a little slow paced, with a common chinese mob VS good cops story, but in the second part, this is where it gets serious. Every scenes featuring Wu Jin are delightful, in a sadistic way. Not to mention the last fight full of anger between Sammo and Donnie Yen.
A movie which made me think that the HK action movie genre is not totally dead yet.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Zaktah

I just saw Shadowless Sword the other night. Other than the final fight scene this movie is a complete waste of time. Save yourself the trouble and just watch the last ten or fifteen minutes, if you bother at all. Not that I was expecting much, since it is a Korean movie.

Well if you live in 2006, Korean cinema has became one the the most (maybe the most) interesting asian cinema since the retrocession of HK to China. Of course Hong Kong still can do some great movies like they used to bring us in the 90's, like the recent "Sha Po Lang" or "Fearless". But it's better to not underestimate the korean cinema anymore. That said, I agree Shadowless Sword miss something to be a great sword movie. The photography, the scenery and the costumes are beautiful (although they didn't used the costumes of the promotional posters -_-), some action scenes delivers, but overall this little something to be a great epic movie is missing. Not to mention the "flying fights" scenes are somewhat ridiculous.
I recently saw "Shinobi" (The anime Basilisk is adapted from the same novel : Romeo and Juliet in the ninja land) and it suffer from the same flaws, the shape is nice but what's inside isn't that interesting.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

It's harmless, go on. The firsts episodes are good at least. Still, Ninja Scroll TV is better than that in many ways.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Check Fearless (Huo Yuan Jia), the best Jet Li movie since 1994.
Seven Swords was alright. Just an ok Tsui Hark, but not as crazy as his previous movies like The Blade or the Swordsman trilogy. Not to mention the OUATIC saga. But Seven Swords got its moments (the last fight with Donnie Yen was SO Tsui Hark).

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Shenlon

Yeah Fearless was a good movie but It reminded me of hero a bit too much. It seems like jet li is becoming kinda like zhang ziyi becuase of:

Spoiler for jet li and zhang ziyi movies. .

Spoiler:

The fact that jet li's character has to die in these dramatic movies

erm.

Spoiler:

Except it didn't follow exactly the true story, Huo Yuan Jia actually died in this tournament, poisoned by the japanese. That's why his pupil -Jet Li or Bruce Lee in Fist of Fury or Fist of Legend- has to avenge him.

And Fearless was 100 times superior to Hero IMHO, which was almost entirely show off and slow motion, aimed for the western audience, like Crouching Tiger was. Fearless got a solid story, great photography and outstanding well executed action sequences. Ronnie Yu is, by far, a better director for this movie genre than Zhang Yimou will ever be. Check the Bride with White Hairs (Jiang Hu). A true Wu Xia Pian masterpiece.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Tokubetsu

Finally got to see Sha Po Lang about a week ago, what an awesome flick. The fightscenes at the very end, are now at the top of my list for most awesome fight scenes ever. On that note, I was also unfortunate enough to watch Death Trance.....

Gotta love Wu Jing.
This guy just rules in every scenes he plays in. Not to mention Sammo in the unusual badguy role. Btw, there is a version "cut" for this movie. If you saw the uncut version then

Spoiler:

Donnie Yen dies in the end. Sammo push him trough a window and he fall down on a car.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

I only saw The Tai Chi Master (not the one with Jet Li, the one from 2005), The Legend of Zu, and Drunken Monkey. The first one wasn't that bad, the second is great but we don't even notice Wu Jing, and I didn't liked the third one, for being a crappy copy of Once Upon A Time In China, with less creativity. So Sha Po Lang was the first movie where I noticed him.

FELIPE NO