What asian film/series have you just seen.. marks out of 5

[Heka]

The Resurrection of the Golden Wolf (Japan, 1979) - 4,5/5
What a gem! Rob a huge amount of money, look cool, get stabbed by the love of your life and go out with style. I doubt there are many anti-heroes that can rival Tetsuya Asakura. Yûsaku Matsuda is the man.

Kids Return (Japan, 1996) - 5/5
This is a hard movie to write about since my pretentious words don't do it justice. This movie is about life and dreams. The movie looks very blue like many other Kitano movies of the 90s. The soundtrack is awesome by default since Joe Hisaishi was in charge of it. As a matter of fact once I've posted this review I'll go running with this track in my mp3 player (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=544bkI1hmGk). Awesome movie all around but there were three scenes that really define the movie. "Spoiler:the scene where Masaru (Ken Kaneko) tells Shinji (Masanobu Andô) "We'll meet again when you're the champ and I'm the boss", the scene where the guy who chose the boring middle road kills himself and finally the last lines spoken by the main characters in the old schoolyard. Epic stuff."

[HungFist]

The Resurrection of the Golden Wolf (Japan, 1979) - 4,5/5
What a gem! Rob a huge amount of money, look cool, get stabbed by the love of your life and go out with style. I doubt there are many anti-heroes that can rival Tetsuya Asakura. Yûsaku Matsuda is the man.

It's my favorite Yusaku Matsuda film. Once you become more fluent Japanese I'll show you The Classroom of Violence, with Matsuda as ex-boxer turned high school teacher in a school where most students are violent gang members. Co-stars Hiroshi Tachi



It's a shame how few people outside Japan know Matsuda, even though in Japan he's every bit as legendary as Bruce Lee and James Dean. The king of cool!



Luxurious Bone (Japan, 2001) – 3.5/5
Yukisada’s fourth feature film, following his silly and unsuccessful Love Cinema entry, A Closing Day, marks a notable improvement. The decidedly low key character drama follows two young women and a sex date (Masatoshi Nagase) who turns out to be an alright guy. Yukisada has the skill to turn non-action into catchy cinema, with enough room for the viewer to breathe and interpret the characters. Solid performances, strong soundtrack, and stylish visuals with excellent use of light and grainy 16 mm film. Still, 20 minutes could’ve been lost easily – a simple mood / slice of life film without story merits to mention does not need to run 105 minutes.
- viewtopic.php?f=1&t=4486&p=163223#p163223

The Heartbreak Yakuza (Japan, 1987) – 2/5
A rightfully forgotten film by Masato Harada, made in the era when yakuza films were at their sappy low point. With more emphasis on romantic storytelling and good looking lead than brutal energy, The Heartbreak Yakuza comes out like a cheap novel for women. Strong 1980’s aesthetics do not help either. Director Harada would later helm far more interesting sociopolitical films such as Kamikaze Taxi and Bounce Ko Gals.

[Heka]

It's my favorite Yusaku Matsuda film. Once you become more fluent Japanese I'll show you The Classroom of Violence, with Matsuda as ex-boxer turned high school teacher in a school where most students are violent gang members. Co-stars Hiroshi Tachi

Well it seems that now I have another reason to learn Japanese besides trying to pick up chicks with cheesy lines like あなたの目は綺麗です and 千葉 真一が好きですか？

[Xenon]

Undefeatable (1993) - haven't seen many of Godfrey Ho movies, but this was the best one so far. Cheesy acting, horrible dialogue and actually bearable fighting scenes. The guy who played Stingray was hilarious. 4/10

Dragon Fight (1989) - good pacing, decent amount of action and Jet Li kicking ass. Could have used a better story and character development but let's not get greedy here. The English dubbing and dialogue in Cantonese version almost made me laugh out loud. The black guy was especially good - "Those guys are bitch" 7/10

[Markgway]

Undefeatable (1993) - haven't seen many of Godfrey Ho movies, but this was the best one so far. Cheesy acting, horrible dialogue and actually bearable fighting scenes. The guy who played Stingray was hilarious. 4/10

Are you sure?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sqFjsmPpUU

[degeneration]

Undefeatable (1993) - haven't seen many of Godfrey Ho movies, but this was the best one so far. Cheesy acting, horrible dialogue and actually bearable fighting scenes. The guy who played Stingray was hilarious. 4/10

Are you sure?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sqFjsmPpUU

Oh my god. that was so bad. There isn't an emoticon that quite has the power of understating to give a proper portrayal of how bad that was.

[Xenon]

Maybe I should have written "bearable by Godfrey Ho standards" to make it clear.

[Markgway]

Joint Security Area (2000-South Korea) **½

The scenes with the soldiers were effective, poignant even, the investigation less so.

[bradavon]

Joint Security Area (2000-South Korea) **½

The scenes with the soldiers were effective, poignant even, the investigation less so.

I thought about the same. It's okay I guess. 5 or 6 out of 10.

[Killer Meteor]

SUPREME SWORDSMAN (1984)

Incredibly old fashioned for its day, this swordplay faire from Shaw Brothers has a dull first half with some of the worst undercranking you will ever see, but does improve in the second half with some surprisingly welcome comic relief, excellent set design and awesome skull masked warriors accompanied by the theme from Death Rides A Horse. Neat ending too, but seriously, did Shaws just crank out these Johnny Come Latelys as some sort of tax write off?

5/10

[Markgway]

Born to Fight (2004-Thailand) **½

Forget about plot... just enjoy the balls out action and bat shit crazy stunts.

[bradavon]

Did you enjoy it? I cannot tell, no sarcasm intended . I've had the UK R2 for some time.

[Xenon]

Born to Fight (2004-Thailand) **½

The whole film was a one gigantic unintentionally hilarious Thailandish patriotic masturbation. Quite bad.

[Markgway]

Did you enjoy it? I cannot tell, no sarcasm intended .

Which part of my text wasn't clear?

I enjoyed the action and stunts.

That's all there is to say.

The whole film was a one gigantic unintentionally hilarious Thailandish patriotic masturbation. Quite bad.

Every country produces films like that.

How many times have we seen American heroes wrap themselves up in a flag?

[Killer Meteor]

HONG KONG GODFATHER (1985)

Outside of their old school period films, Shaw's product often looked as fresh as the Golden Harvest or Cinema City stuff, and this is a good example. The gory action is fun, there's some ok humour, a killer mall finale that was seemingly included to pre-empt the same year's Police Story, and Shih Kien still proving himself a kung fu master at 72. Not sure what to makes of lines like "Mother worried so much that she died from cancer" though...

6/10

[Yi-Long]

I really liked Born to Fight. Just a straight-out action flick, and does that very well. It's violent, it's spectacular, it has a great pacing, and just a simple plot.

[Keung]

A Better Tomorrow - ★★★½
Tiger Cage - ★★★

[grim_tales]

Magnificent Warriors: 3.5/5

Not one of the best HK films of the 80's (to be fair the competition is tough) but still a fun Indiana Jones type adventure with action, martial arts and humour and Michelle Yeoh battling to save a small village from the Japanese. She was cute when she was young

[grim_tales]

Shogun Assassin: 3.5/5

Good but not as good as LW+C in Japanese, though it is interesting seeing the whole story through Daigoro's eyes, what he thinks and his bond with his father.

[Heka]

Love sick (Taiwan, 2011) - 4/5
Movies like this are almost as embarrassing for a "butch" male as a hard drive full of gay pornography. Regardless of this fact I'm curious about the quality of modern Chinese cinema. I haven't seen that much modern movies from HK, Taiwan and PRC. Love sick is a romcom staring some random Chinese actors that I haven't seen before. Fortunately they are good. Ariel Lin as the female lead was terrific. Don't be fooled though, I believe most guys won't get that much enjoyment from this movie. One has to have a mindset ready for silly stuff when watching this movie.

I do (China, 2012) - 2/5
Damn Li BingBing is gorgeous. You know what else is gorgeous? The China of this movie. Everything is super clean, the roads are perfect and the nature is beautiful. It looks even more fake than modern Hollywood films. The movie is a bit boring and the 1h 40min runtime is a tad too much. Also the writing is a bit bad with some unexplainable plot holes. Did I also mention that the ending was bad? Well, with all its fault the movie is still watchable. BingBing alone warrants this movie some credibility.

Too bad Hung escaped to Japan just before I found movies like these. I have to show him a couple of Asian romance flicks as a "revenge" from all the Sushi Typhoon films.

[Killer Meteor]

CHALLENGE THE DRAGON (1974)

Apparently shot for change found down the back of the sofa, this is a very formulaic poverty row kung fu flick, with endless back-and forth and to-and-froing fights and running, and little else to show for it. The cast is mostly unknowns, though Shih Chung Tien is cool as the Japanese villian. The lead, Tong Lung, is a freaky Bruce Lee lookalike who is so absurdly ripped he looks ridiculous, very rigid and big bosomed, can't run properly, and has the charisma of a welk.

The audio track for the US print was redubbed in Europe, with voices familiar from Italian horror flicks. The sound FX is a weird mixture of new effects (footsteps, birdsong) produced during the dubbing, and the original Chinese sound track, which is never synced properly and often has punches sound well before the action on screen. And why is that one character called Brother Matthew, when everyone else is referred to by their Chinese name?

4/10

[saltysam]

The Hot,The Cool & The Vicious 3/5 Always had a soft spot for this one since seeing it at a very early 80's all night kung fu film show. Plus it has one of the best titles ever Don Wong Tao & Tan Tao Liang team up against the evil Tommy Lee...has a spaghetti westernish vibe to it,the film tbh isn't great but does have a fantastic opening credit sequences and a very good two on one finale.The Eastern Heroes dvd is pretty poor,cropped and bizarrely includes as an option mandarin language with NO english subtitles

[Markgway]

The Hot,The Cool & The Vicious 3/5 Always had a soft spot for this one since seeing it at a very early 80's all night kung fu film show. Plus it has one of the best titles ever Don Wong Tao & Tan Tao Liang team up against the evil Tommy Lee...has a spaghetti westernish vibe to it,the film tbh isn't great but does have a fantastic opening credit sequences and a very good two on one finale.The Eastern Heroes dvd is pretty poor,cropped and bizarrely includes as an option mandarin language with NO english subtitles

Their VHS included remastered subtitles!

[Killer Meteor]

The Hot,The Cool & The Vicious 3/5 Always had a soft spot for this one since seeing it at a very early 80's all night kung fu film show. Plus it has one of the best titles ever Don Wong Tao & Tan Tao Liang team up against the evil Tommy Lee...has a spaghetti westernish vibe to it,the film tbh isn't great but does have a fantastic opening credit sequences and a very good two on one finale.The Eastern Heroes dvd is pretty poor,cropped and bizarrely includes as an option mandarin language with NO english subtitles

Their VHS included remastered subtitles!

I enjoy this one, it's very relaxing, funny (it's not a comedy, it's just kind of wacky) and has some good fights. Plus the great line "I don't know why you don't find a nice steady man, instead of this gold-haired gorilla"/"you're wrong, gold haired gorillas are pretty rare"

I recall the subs on the VHS referred to Tommy Lee as "The Living Pluto"

EH also released a Cantonese theatrical print (with burnt in subs) of Snake Deadly Act on VHS, but when they did the DVD, they replaced the Cantonese track with an English one, but with the theatrical subs still on!

[Killer Meteor]

FIVE VENOMS (1978)

I was never very impressed by this one on VHS (the English dub track was heavily muffled), but seeing the DD dvd has given me a great deal of appreciation for this slice of kung fu guignol. It's heavy on the chat, but it's good, intelligent chat, and is rich in atmosphere and has a keen sense of the bizarre. Wei Pei still can't act for toffee though.

Kudos to Bey Logan's commentary, which really helped me appreciate the riches this film has to offer.

8/10