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Nice to see a new thread for this, I haven't found any new Korean movies to watch in a while. I'm also really interested to see some recommendations from someone really close to the lesser-known titles. Has anyone watched Howling yet? It stars the ubiquitous Kang-ho Song and looks interesting, it's up for streaming on Netflix but I haven't been taking the time to watch many movies lately so I haven't gotten to it yet. Also I'm going to shamelessly repost a couple recommendations of mine from the old thread. Seconding the recommendation for A Tale of Two Sisters, it's still one of my favorites.  This is probably the one that started me on Korean horror. I've seen it several times, and love it more each time I watch it. The art direction is fantastic, each scene feels like it could be framed as a painting. The basic story is, two sisters come back home from some unspecified hospital stay to live with their father and his new wife. The sisters don't get along too well with their new mom, and weird poo poo starts to happen. The stepmom is played brilliantly in this movie, she manages to be civilized and cheery yet cruel in her interactions with the two sisters. Acacia  A husband and wife who are unable to have a child decide to adopt. The boy becomes obsessed with an acacia tree they have in their back yard, convinced that his biological mother lives on as the tree. After the wife finally becomes pregnant and has a child after all, the adopted boy ends up disappearing, and weird poo poo starts to happen. Treeless Mountain  This is something in a different direction than most of the movies listed so far. I stumbled on this through Netflix, it's currently up for streaming. It's a movie I would have completely overlooked otherwise, but I found it to be a really well made, moving story. It's very quiet and slow paced, so it's probably not for everyone. The story concerns two sisters who are left in the care of their aunt while their struggling mother goes off to try to find their deadbeat dad. The aunt in question is an alcoholic, and barely able to care for herself, so the two girls end up essentially fending for themselves. The film is basically just their day to day life as they try to survive and deal with the inevitable abandonment issues, as the days go by and they anxiously wait for their mother to return.
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Jan 3, 2013 03:46
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gmq posted:On the other hand, a couple of weeks ago I watched Going by the Book and it's a pretty fun movie but the last scene seems like it was taken from other, worse, movie.
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Jan 24, 2013 05:06
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I've seen The Crucible/Silenced pop up on Netflix a few times, I'll be sure to check it out.Some Guy TT posted:Something worth noting about my reviews is that I try to specifically avoid mentioning actual plot details in them for exactly that reason. I think part of the reason why Korean film works so well is that there's such a huge element of surprise, and I'd hate to ruin that. On the flip side, sometimes I wonder whether anyone's actually getting any real information out of them. Some Guy TT posted:Howling is a really good baseline movie for what's typical in Korean drama films. It has an interesting high concept, strong character performances, a focus on realism, explicitly portrays people in power as out for their own self-interest rather than as a higher-calling, and unapologetically brings up social issues. It's not an outstanding film, but it will definitely scratch your itch if that's what you watch Korean movies to get a hit of. It does bring up something I've noticed in similar films; I'm curious as to your take on what I've started calling the casual violence that's shown frequently, at least in most of the movies I've watched. What I mean is, the tendency of superiors to hit/slap their subordinates when they've made a mistake. Obviously it's not in all movies, and when it's someone like a crime boss doing it it fits the character, but it's something that's really jarring to watch when it's done by a high ranking police officer.
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Jan 29, 2013 00:35
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Velocirocktor posted:As for suggestions, it seems you haven't seen Bedeviled. I'd definitely check that out. It's carried by a really, really good central performance and gets pretty tense. It's about a woman dealing with the death of her daughter, but it's not anything like Secret Sunshine if that similarity puts you off at all. Are you interested in horror at all? I mentioned a couple of my favorites earlier on in this thread. I've watched tons of Korean horror movies, and most of them were of the post-Ringu/The Ring remake "ghost girls with long black hair" variety, but a couple more that stood out for me were: Bloody Reunion - The only Korean slasher film I've ever seen. It gets pretty gory and true to form for most Korean horror I've watched, involves a twist. Antarctic Journal - A team of explorers is heading for one of the most remote points in the Antarctic when they run into evidence of a much older exploration team, and start encountering serious trouble. Dabbles into horror a bit but that's not really the focus of the movie. Stars the omnipresent Kang-ho Song!
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Feb 1, 2013 02:52
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Speaking of Park Chan-Wook (Thirst), Stoker is getting some mixed reviews, but a lot of critics (the ones I pay attention to anyway) seem to really love it, like Ebert. I haven't read much about it yet and I think I'm going to keep it that way. It's "limited" release right now unfortunately, which means good luck if you don't live in NY, LA or the other city that I'm forgetting.
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Mar 1, 2013 14:28
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TheMaskedChemist posted:Face: This one blew me away, I would hesitate to call it horror, it's more of a crime drama with supernatural elements thrown in to enhance the tension. The protagonists are very likable, and they carry the movie well. The story is captivating and paces itself well , and the twist at the end completely caught me of guard. If it has a weakness it's that the supernatural element could have largely been lifted from the movie with out affecting it and for the most part they feel very superfluous. Chichevache posted:Cross posting from the Stoker Thread since I loved the film so much.
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Mar 26, 2013 14:39
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Some Guy TT posted:The Bow is a Kim Ki-Duk film about a fisherman who lives on an isolated fishing platform in the middle of nowhere and the sixteen year old girl he's been raising for the past ten years to eventually become his wife. It's a fairy tale. Not one of those sanitized kid's fairy tales, but one where the fairy is a creepy, frightening, yet friendly entity who can't really be understood with human logic. On a related note, this inspired me to finally watch The Isle, also by Kim Ki-Duk, a story with a similar setting. It's a movie I'd avoided because the cover art Netflix is using made it look like a late night Cinemax special  "An exhilarating foray into forbidden pleasures!" Seriously, that's the quote they went with? It's definitely not, it's a meditative and often disturbing story of two damaged people. He's a very interesting filmmaker, I want to watch more of his work.
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Apr 14, 2013 21:53
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There's an artsy-ish theater not too far from me that's shown a lot of limited release movies before (I saw Stoker there), and I was browsing their showtimes when I came across the latest from Ki-duk Kim, Pieta. I'd never heard of it until now. Has anyone seen or heard anything about this? I may check it out tomorrow. I keep meaning to watch more of his films, so far I've only seen The Island and part of Bad Guy when it was still streaming on Netflix.
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May 18, 2013 02:12
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Good lord Pieta is an emotional gut punch. I thought I was used to heavy themes in SK film by now but this one floored me. It also contains a couple of the most uncomfortable scenes I've watched in a long while. I highly recommend this if you don't mind feeling drained for a couple hours.
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May 19, 2013 03:23
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I haven't seen Spring... etc, so I can't compare it, but it is a very deliberately paced movie and the sound design is sparse to say the least. It does move slowly but didn't feel too slow to me personally, I was drawn in completely from the start.
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May 19, 2013 03:32
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Bugblatter posted:Memories of Murder and A Tale of Two Sisters are the two best photographed Korean films. Both are stunning, and Memories of Murder has some of my favorite compositions in cinema.
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Jun 2, 2013 17:09
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Some Guy TT posted:
I'm curious on your perspective on this Some Guy, is South Korean horror not really being made anymore or does it just seem like that outside of the country? For a period there, it seemed like they were endless, I'm guessing brought on by the success of the larger Asian horror wave with such films like Ju-On and Ringu, but I haven't seen a paranormal SK horror movie in a while. I'd imagine I Saw the Devil and Bedevilled could be called horror, but the focus seems to have shifted away from ghosts, are people just tired of those films, or does it just seem that way because they're not getting international attention anymore?
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Sep 16, 2013 14:41
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Some Guy TT posted:
Also that poster is so much better than what Netflix is using: 
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Oct 10, 2013 04:28
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Has anyone seen The Weight? It barely has an IMDB entry and I couldn't find out a whole lot about it, apart from a very NWS trailer up on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noGUrcocXk8  From that, it looks like it could either be an aggressively indie movie about exploring loneliness, otherness, and gender issues, or a bizarre shock fest.
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Nov 28, 2013 02:45
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Speaking of Oldboy, anyone see the remake? I didn't even realize it was out, I guess it came out Friday.
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Dec 2, 2013 01:05
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Some Guy TT posted:
I first heard about it on these forums, flashy_mcflash in the horror thread mentioned it as being one of the horror selections from the Fantasia festival this summer: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3030395&pagenumber=402&perpage=40#post416930130 I bookmark a lot of interesting movies I hear about, to get a hold of them if they ever become available. This one looks like it's going to be tough to find though.
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Dec 2, 2013 14:10
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I really want to see "The Terror Live". Also I'm depressed that Snowpiercer distribution apparently got held up, are the Weinsteins being Weinsteins about it or what's going on? I thought that was supposed to be a big summer release. On Netflix streaming, I just watched The Tower, it's a big budget disaster movie with heroic characters, comic relief, and a big glass skybridge that sets up exactly the scene you'd expect. It's a pretty exciting ride. Although to remind you that you are watching a Korean movie, it ends on a big depressing downer note.
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Jan 5, 2014 05:37
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EvilElmo posted:I really enjoyed A Company Man and The Man From Nowhere, are there other Korean movies you guys would recommend that are similar? Some Guy TT posted:It was...in South Korea. On a technical level, it is the Weinsteins just being unreasonably picky about the cut. Personally I think the problem is more to do with film philosophy in general- American distributors are just really reticent about trying to market any movie that isn't either a sequel, franchise, or features an A-Lister in the lead role, whereas South Korean distributors just throw whatever crazy ideas they have against the wall in the hopes it will stick. I was actually supposed to write a year-end piece for Current Releases about it but...eh...that fell through. Not terribly surprising, given what a specialized topic Korean film is. The score is wonderful too. I don't usually have an ear for music, but this one stood out.
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Jan 18, 2014 05:10
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AnonSpore posted:Sounds like 숨바꼭질, it was pretty bad.
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Jun 26, 2014 02:30
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Wait, and they're doing a staggered release for it? The movie starring Chris "Captain America" Evans, and about a frozen wasteland, just as the summer heat starts to really kick in? I guess Transformers did come out this weekend so that's a hard thing to open against, but it really should have opened last year anyway so again, the Weinsteins are idiots.
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Jul 1, 2014 01:00
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I haven't seen a new one in a couple years either, but I strongly recommend Bedeviled. The Tower is a fun genre disaster movie, but don't expect anything on the level of the others you've listed. Doomsday book was an interesting collection of three short films, with differing tones. I noticed just now that one of Ki-duk Kim's newer films Moebius is up there, anyone seen that? He can be difficult to get into from what I've seen of his movies.
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Mar 2, 2015 22:00
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Yeah! I saw it and liked it a lot. Very dark and very funny. After a while, you don't notice that there is no spoken dialog at all in the film. astr0man posted:Also, Snowpiercer is Bong Joon-Ho's first English language movie, and I thought it was available on netflix but I guess it's not streaming right now. You might be able to find it on amazon prime or some other streaming service though. I think you can still use Hola Unblocker to magically teleport yourself to other countries if you need to, although I haven't done it in a while. Also I'd recommend you check out the Snowpiercer director's earlier movie The Host if you haven't already. It's a big, fun, comedically serious movie of the kind that South Korea does so well. Up until recently, I believe it held the record for box office sales in South Korea. edit: also check out The Good, the Bad and the Weird. It's basically what it sounds like, an over the top retelling of the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Really stylish and from the director of Tale of Two Sisters and I Saw the Devil, though completely different in tone from those. RightClickSaveAs fucked around with this message at 01:12 on Mar 3, 2015 |
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Mar 3, 2015 01:09
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This is a ways off yet (June 28th) but I just found out Netflix gave Bong Joon-ho a bunch of money to make a monster movie: https://arstechnica.com/the-multiverse/2017/02/first-trailer-for-okja-proves-that-giant-monsters-can-always-get-weirder/ I'm (perhaps wistfully) thinking of some kind of cross between The Host and Mother, but whatever happens I'm excited!
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Feb 28, 2017 19:33
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