In no particular order:
-Most Tarantino movies.
-Michael Bay movies.
-Ong Bak (that's the one I hate the most).
-Matrix trilogy.
-The Godfather trilogy.
-Everything "Anime".
-Titanic.
-Terminator 3.
-Shrek 1 & 2.
-Spider-Man 1 & 2.
But I don't usually speak about movies that I hate (I wouldn't want to get into a stupid "This movie's great / No, this movie sucks" conversation).
I used to be "the man who loves the movies you hate".
Now I'm just "that weird french guy with a cat avatar who comes to BnB once a year for no reason and then disappears again".
Outstanding in every respect, I was just gripped by this film for the whole 140 minute runtime! Excellent performances by the cast, great production design, rousing score - this film has everything!
Taegukgi is now one of my favourite films of all time.
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I'm a huge Taegukgi fan as well
I was totally blown away when i first saw it last year.
One of the best war films ever, IMO.
Where the hell is the extended cut DVD, Showbox!?
I wonder what Kang Je-gyu is up to these days, i have not heard of any new projects that he's connected with.
Lets hope he keeps going, but learns that you do not need to FLAIL the camera around to create an exciting action scene.
The extended cut was apprantly made and ready for a super dooper release on about 5 dvds in Korea, they gave out packaging specs and everything it sounded staggering. Then it was canned no idea why, they just did so in the future we may well get a extended cut, well fingers crossed anyway as its a top film.
Yeah they seemed stuck on the fact it wasnt in english if you ask me it was as good as Saving Private Ryan I think, it may copy from many other flms, but its the end product which counts.
I think "Taegukgi" is a really good film until its ending.
Another thing which could have been better is the cinematography during the combat scenes. Seemed a bit too shaky in my opinion. Although, I prefer the film to "Saving Private Ryan", the cinematography in the WWII-film's combat sequences was just clearer.
I've finally got round to seeing this film and crikey! How spooky! It was very slow moving but managed to keep the tension building throughout its relatively short 88 minutes. It kept me gripped and thats the 2nd film in 2 nights that I've watched and really enjoyed!
I was beginning to think I was getting into a bit of a rut with Asian films - they all seemed to offer the same thing & I wasn't finding anything new. That is until I watched Taegukgi last night and now Ju-On tonight.
Its safe to say that my interest has been redeemed!
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thelostdragon wrote:I think "Taegukgi" is a really good film until its ending.
May i ask what exactly you didn't like about the ending?
That ending has become one of my all time favorites!
Jang Dong-gun not noticing his brother anymore. I can understand that for the first 30 seconds due to the chaos of war, but how long are they fighting and how often is Wong Bin calling his brother's name etc etc.... And then when he finally notices his brother, he tells him to go, turns around and dies this hero death, shooting dozens of "commie bastards" on his way to this death. "How dramatic... how patriotic!"
Sorry, but all the realism that was present in this film, was just wiped away by this ending. But still, I gave the film 4/5. Could easily have been a 4.5, though.
Rikidozan - 3/5
Bio-pic with Sol Kyung-gu ("Public Enemy"). It is about the real-life Korean wrestler Rikidozan. In the 1950's, he fled from the Korean war to Japan and tried to make a living there as a sumo wrestler. As he keeps on failing and keeps on facing racism, he decides to go to America and to take up professional wrestling alà WWF.
Well, what can I say... nice fighting scenes and an amazingly well trained Sol Kyung-gu. At a running time of 139 minutes, the relationship to his wife comes just too short, though. I think that it was an important aspect which could have been explored further.
Dragon Squad - 3/5
Well, what can I say... nice action. A lot of scenes which could have worked, provided there was a solid story-background to them.
Great soundtrack.
Very average film that winds up being the poor country cousin of Basic Instinct. The story is sort of similar (cop/lawyer becomes too involved with murder suspect), the sex scenes try to outsteam BI, the twist is similar.. its' a shame because its not awful but the problem is it came AFTER Basic Instinct which is better written, acted, and much more stylish and enjoyable.
The provisional is because a) I had to watch it in installments (my 8mth old was not very co-operative) and b) the dvd quality was a bit poor (low contrast, non anamorphic, wierd subs)
Anyhow I enjoyed it, but feel it is more of an OngBak++ rather than a step up in film making.
There are some cracking scenes my favorite being the extended steadycam section in a hotel where, seemingly without cuts, Ja ascends stairs and floors unleashing a can of woopass on the bad guys, the planning must have taken ages.
The fight in the temple against the caporeaist(sp?) was also good.
BUT, and with score of 3/5 there has to be a but; this film was lacking in some respects for me.
1) Story. OK, you cant expect war and peace but the plot is a little "contrived" shall we say.
2) The action. Whilst the moves are superb, and make you wonder how Ja pulls it off, much of the action was a bit "samey". It is OnkBak++ because you either have Ja pulling off acrobatics to escape and evade, or alternatively jointlocking and snapping the limbs of one hapless adversary after another ad nauseam.
There were two few 1 on 1 (or 1 on 2) encounters that lasted more than 5secs and didnt result in the immediate incapcity of the assailant. For the next project I think Ja will need to think seriously about extending some of the more general fights into less of a demonstration of human destructiveness. I would also liked to have seen some more weapons work (but he might be saving that for the next film)
The final fight is consider a bit futher below.
3) The special effects. Not used much, but where used, ropey (it may be the poor quality of the dvd highlighted their shortcomings)
I will definitely be picking up another copy of this when a more complete DVD is released, but it is not the step up from OngBak that I had hoped
Final Fight Expansion...
The final fight where Ja ends up using the bones of his dead elephant friend just looked uncomfortable, impractical and to me, fairly fake. Not the high point bout it should have been
Last edited by uberbloke on 12 Dec 2005, 16:20, edited 1 time in total.
no idea why, they just did 
