Recommend some Foreign Faves

Bergman's early work

The Virgin Spring
Wild Strawberries
The Seventh Seal


also some Fellini

Satyrican
Amarcord

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These were the first 3 that came into my head when I read the title. Versus is just pure action and I love it. Audition should be mentioned as well

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JAPAN

The Seven Samurai [1954 | Kurosawa] A+++
The Hidden Fortress [1958 | Kurosawa] A+++
Rashomon [1950 | Kurosawa] A+++
Spirited Away [2002 | Miyazaki] A+++


FRANCE

Monsieur Hire [1989 | Leconte] A+++
Le Cercle Rouge [1970 | Melville] A+++

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French:
The Crimson Rivers

Japanese:
Kagemusha
Ran
Tampopo
Grave of the Fireflies (anime)

I've always liked Jean de Florette and its sequel, Manon of the Spring . Das Boot is another favorite. Also, The Lover.

Indochine, with Catherine Deneuve. I saw it years ago, but I've never forgotten it. Bee-yoo-tee-ful.

Man, I feel like Dummy Dummerson, though--I probably haven't seen a quarter of these films (so thanks for all the ideas, all y'all). The last foreign film I saw was a Polish film called Day of the Wacko, and I wasn't impressed. It was funny, up to a point, but more of a character study than anything else.

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Besides Italian horror, one of my faves is The Vanishing (1988), a dutch film that was actually remade in Hollywood (badly).

It's about a man and woman who go on a holiday together and she disappears when they stop at a petrol station. Psychological horror at it's best.

Another one I am enamored with is Burnt By the Sun (1994), Russian, about a family during Stalin's reign. It also won the Academy Award for foreign films that year.

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"There is nothing gratuitous about my films." - Dario Argento

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...

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...

It's actually Austrian.

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.

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haha, right on mairosu! vengeance is mine was great, you deserve a reputation point for having seen it! aw heck, two even.

mr. vampire too! what great taste, why, if i didnt know better i'd think you were stalking me and watching all the same movies.

*bump*

Man, I really kill them threads. Noone anything to add ?

Japanese:

Yojimbo
Kagemusha
Seven Samurai
Rashomon
The Samurai Trilogy
Ringu
The Eye (alright I guess)
Battle Royale (is it me or does the second look awful?)

Hong Kong:

Once Upon A Time In China
Mr. Vampire (haha sorry but it has to be there)
A Better Tommorrow
Return to A Better Tommorrow
Young & Dangerous
Fist of Fury
Drunken Master
The Killer




Oh come on, Operation Condor, you can't seriously put it there?

Why not ? After Project A, Operation Condor (aka Armour of Gods II) is one of the best Chan comedy/action fusions he made. Agreed, it takes some time to slip into top gear, but the final 40 minutes are non-stop action and fun.

You also might have seen the mangled dub version - cantonese original is about 25 minutes longer.

Oh and, The Eye is Chinese, not Japanese.

ah thanks, I wasn't sure about that one.

Ok agreed but I think there are some better examples in Hong Kong cinema, the second was quite poor though. You have to agree with that

If under "the second" you mean the second installment of Armour of Gods, I happen to think that the first part (even though a good chunk of it was filmed in then my home country) is much inferior - action scenes are reduced to the last, what, 15 minutes and the film is full of dull, at times uninentionally funny, dialogues and attempts at situational comedy.

There are definitely better examples in Hong Kong cinema, but for that particular genre - slapstick kung-fu/wuxia comedy - I consider Project A and Operation Condor to be the high points (honourable mention for Drunken Master and Mr. Vampire).

Ok I can agree with that I can't think of any better examples off the top of my head.

On another note, am I the only one who thinks that Stormriders really wasn't worthy of all the acclaim it received?

Sorry to dodge your question Impy (never seen Stormriders)...but i was gonna ask Mairosu....i love all the old kung-fu classics you've mentioned. Can you recommend any modern stuff (comedic for sure - but serious/spirtual/cultural too). In fact, older cultural recommendations would be v.welcome too. I've seen one based around traditional theatre which was based at the time of communism's rise in China that was quality.

Anything you can recommend?

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Try something from comedian Stephen Chow, he's a recent Hong Kong standout. Shaolin Soccer and God of Cookery spring to mind. Also, Jet Li's films from the earlier-mid 90s are quite decent, ie.

From older stuff, you might like Dragon Gate Inn, Bride with White Hair, Legend (or was it Warriors) of the Zu Mountain. For future references, try visiting http://www.kungfucinema.com/ or http://www.hkflix.com/.

Cheers man - you're a star. I've seen bride with white hair - and two of the earlier jet-li ones where he's a traditional hero figure (one ending-up with him working his way down an alley blind-folded taking out loads of people - and culminating in a stacking-stools rope-whipping finale. Top notch - good background stories too i seem to remember) - Much better than all his hollywood outings!

I've been meaning to see Shaolin Soccer too.

Cheers again.

(i've been trying to talk with some Chinese students of mine about everything from movies to culture - but even tho we're matey, and play football (soccer) together and stuff, it's quite hard to break down the barriers and get some real exchange going at the moment. [finally getting to use their real names tho rather than nicknames like Malcolm and Kevin and stuff. The short versions of course. "Shu" and "Meung" and stuff - but i'm always so cautious of mispronouncing ])

Incidently, have you seen a film about a woman who moves between a village and the city centre, trading etc? (i've forgotten a lot about it - but it was amazing - mainly about the clash between village and city life, and new-capitalism/materialism influences. She was an entrepreneur of sorts, with a truck, and an unambitious husband, as i recall)

Well, Kiss of the Dragon was OK, but I really didn't like Cradle 2 the Grave or Romeo Must Die (I'll gently ignore The One). Rumour has it that Jet Li was baited into Lethal Weapon 4 by the producers, who promised him a lead role elsewhere if he appeared there first.

I'm still to see his latest Chinese output, "Hero", which according to just about everyone should be great.

Eh...can you dish out more details here ?