Here's my list.
Japan
- about everything Kurosawa made
- Ichi the Killer, Dead or Alive trilogy, City of Lost Souls, Fudoh (Takashi Miike)
- Kairo (Pulse)
- Ringu
- Vengeance is Mine (with due credits to Linespalsy here)
- Tokyo Drifter (and again, same credit due)
- Battle Royale
Korea
- Joint Security Area, probably the best film I saw this year
- Friend
- Shiri
- Legend of Gingko
- 2009 Lost Memories
- Musa the Warrior
Hong Kong
- Hard Boiled
- The Killer
- A Better Tommorow 1 & 2
- Once a Thief (yes, I'm a Woo fan, can you tell)
- Project A
- Operation Condor
- Once Upon a Time in China
- Mr. Vampire
Spain
- Devil's Backbone
- Open Your Eyes
- Thesis (Snuff)
- early Almodovar
France
- Nid de Guepes (The Nest)
- Le Grand Bleu (The Big Blue)
- Dobermann
- Taxi
- Les Visiteurs (The Visitors)
- all the Louis de Funes comedies
- good chunk of J.P. Belmondo films
Not to miss : Lars von Trier's Kingdom.
I am probably missing a lot, esp. under "Japan" because I know there is much more, but make this a start. I didn't write too much info about those films, but if someone has a question, fire away.
Couple of smart-arse remarks...
I just got into watching the subtitled movies this year
Go figure, I am watching them eversince I know. Then again, English not being my native language, almost all the films I saw were subtitled...
DUTCH-NEATHERLANDS
Micheal Haneke's FUNNY GAMES- simply one of the best thrillers ever made...painfully paced and full of ideas and questions about violence and its repucussions
It's actually Austrian.
John Woo's A BETTER TOMORROW rivals THE GODFATHER as an epic saga of organized crime and its price.
Tsui Hark's THE BLADE- rivals ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA as the directors greatest work- amazing period detail is bought to life with breathtaking sword fights and beautiful cinematography.
I disagree on both, different kinds of disagreement though.
I loved A Better Tommorow but I don't think a comparison with The Godfather is really neccessary. That particular ditty is stretched across every damn DVD import here, about every Asian film which has more than half a gangster in it is immediately pimped as "the Asian Godfather" or something like that. A Better Tommorow scores better than your ordinary actioner purely due to layered characterisations and some okay acting, but it's not even near to Godfather in my books.
I totally disliked The Blade. I thought that the action scenes were badly done, mainly due to the use of that zoom-dezoom effect which works against the film as the swordfights aren't really that enthralling in an extreme closeup. In my opinion, a better period piece of the medieval east Asia is the Korean epic Musa the Warrior.