Movies you've recently watched

For some reason I've been on a bit of a Korean film kick. (Stay tuned! More to come in the Horror Movie thread!) So this morning I watched a movie called Bedevilled. I thought the movie was absolutely amazing. The scenes of Seoul and the Korean island were beautiful. The acting was fantastic. Seo Young-hee hit it out of the park. The story was second to none. Jang Cheol-Soo did a great job of directing the film. I can't wait to see his new film Secretly Greatly. With all that said. . . The movie was soul-crushingly sad. And I'm not joking. If you watch this movie lock away your kitchen knives before you do because you'll want to chop off your junk and apologize on behalf of the male population to every woman in a hundred mile radius after watching it. The story was really rough. But I suppose the fact that it's able to grab you by the emotions and never let up just reinforces the greatness of the story and acting. So I highly recommend it for anyone who's interested in watching a great movie.
 

Rhombaad

Video Game Time Traveler
I watched Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale last night, and I highly recommend it. It's one of the most original movies I've seen in quite some time, and it's a lot of fun.
 
Both those movies sound SO interesting, thanks for the write up ciggy~Skeleton.

Rare Exports was hilarious, good call Rhombaad.

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Checked out Superman Unbound recently, not bad and not as good or fun as Superman/Batman: Apocalypse. Cool scenes are few and far between. Emotions not animated well enough, good voice acting though. Here's a synopsis "Based on the Geoff Johns/Gary Frank 2008 release “Superman: Brainiac,” SUPERMAN: UNBOUND finds the Man of Steel aptly handling day-to-day crime while helping acclimate Supergirl to Earth’s customs and managing Lois Lane’s expectations for their relationship. Personal issues take a back seat when the horrific force responsible for the destruction of Krypton – Brainiac – begins his descent upon Earth. Brainiac has crossed the universe, collecting cities from interesting planets – including Supergirl’s home city of Kandor – and now the all-knowing, ever-improving android has his sights fixed on Metropolis. Superman must summon all of his physical and intellectual resources to protect his city, the love of his life and his newly-arrived cousin." I'd give it a 6/10.

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Friday last week I watched The Shining on the big screen for the first time at IFC, incredible experience. Loud unapologetic sound. I've seen it numerous times on my TV and here's a problem - watching flicks that are visually stunning or that come with great sound on the big screen spoils you and I notice with 2001 and now The Shining, it's very cool to watch on BRay at home but the experience at the movies is on a different level. 10/10.

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Jack Reacher, under-rated. It's Cruise again, playing another Jack and I was apprehensive about the movie overall with the kind of criticism Cruise gets for playing the same character all the time but past all that, it's not outstanding and it's not bad, somewhat mid-tier with the occasional witty dialog. 7/10 and was better than I expected.

EDIT: Found Bedevilled last night but a version without sub-titles, so the search is on. Secretly Greatly I was unable to find completely, is this a recent release/ currently showing in theaters?

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I'd picked up the Blu Ray for this sci-fi short and was holding on to watching it, finally checked it out last night (was in the mood). I actually landed up watching it back to back. The soundtrack's beautiful, hitting the right notes at key scenes. An AI on board a spaceship builds himself a mechanical body from parts he can find on the ship and gets a flash of visuals in his subconscious. He tries to piece things together. 9/10.
 
IncantatioN said:
EDIT: Found Bedevilled last night but a version without sub-titles, so the search is on. Secretly Greatly I was unable to find completely, is this a recent release/ currently showing in theaters?

I apologize for the late reply. This thread completely slipped my mind.

I saw Bedevilled on Netflix for the Wii. I have no idea how all that works, but maybe Netflix has a hardcopy you could rent? Keep up the search though! I promise it's worth it. :)

Secretly, Greatly hasn't been released yet. If I remember correctly, it comes out in theatres in Korea in June. I can't wait to see it. If it's half as good as Bedevilled it'll be great. (And luckily it's a comedy so I won't be walking around in a sadness/anger-induced stupor after watching it.)

I'm currently watching a horror film called Evil Twin. I've only watched the beginning, but the scariest part of the film so far is the truly terrible subtitles. (For example, it'll say "I has gone to food buying store" instead of "I went to the grocery store.") I don't know how the translator could live with himself after taking money for that work.
 
Oh no problem hah! Thanks for the info on both movies, unfortunately I disconnected my Netflix subscription a few months ago, so I'll look for it in one of these local DVD stores. Barring those hilarious sub-titles (enough to make me want to watch it), how good does it hold up in the horror department. One of those shock horror flicks or atmospheric ones perhaps?

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I Give It A Year is a decent Rom-Com with some hilarious dialog, mainly by the lead's best friend played by Stephen Merchant. It's not your usual formulaic story and circles around a couple who seem to marry in a rush and either have some unresolved feelings for other people or a new attraction based on someone they recently met and connected with, idea being the saying "opposites attract" may not always work in a marriage scenario, though they're not opposites in the true sense, think of it as an example. Anyway (goddamnit you're terrible at this), I think this would make for more than just a casual watch and wouldn't mind hitting it again. 6.5/10.

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The Place Beyond The Pines, 8.5/10, loved it. Recommend anyone to check it out. Gosling performance is under-stated and he isn't the only one who shines, the ambience is cool, soundtrack too. Two or three stories are inter-connected and surprised to see the awesome Mendelsohn in it though he plays a similar role as he did in Killing Me Softly.

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Forgot to mention Jagten (The Hunt). It's good to go blind on this one. Brilliant acting, depressing and it's just perfect right until the credits roll. Shows how connected a small Danish community can be and how things can go utterly wrong when you rely on gossip or info from an innocent child versus evidence or rationale. Sensitive issue creates a unique premise for the film and the end is perfect because
paranoia or doubt will always remain a part of a human vice and it's unlikely to go away when it's hard to accept, it's one big flaw - and that's tackled so well.
 
IncantatioN said:
Oh no problem hah! Thanks for the info on both movies, unfortunately I disconnected my Netflix subscription a few months ago, so I'll look for it in one of these local DVD stores. Barring those hilarious sub-titles (enough to make me want to watch it), how good does it hold up in the horror department. One of those shock horror flicks or atmospheric ones perhaps?

It's a bit of a generic ghost movie. Y'know, the ones that always have the white-clad girl with her face covered by her hair going around killing folks. I'm not really a fan of that type of horror movie. I think because I watched movies like The Ring and Ju-On back-to-back (both the Japanese originals and American remakes) that I got tired of the concept.* To Evil Twin's credit though there was one scary scene that I actually really liked (and thought was creepy as hell) despite my dislike.

I don't know if it's because the subtitles got to me or because I've been in a shitty mood for the past couple of weeks, but I really wanted to hate Evil Twin when I decided to finish it. To the story's credit, it never let me hate it. And on top of that I thought it actually got pretty badass there for a while. But they really screwed up the ending. The story was heading in a great direction, but they decided to take a hard turn into the wall at the very end so the story ended up fizzling out. The movie had moments of brilliance so it ended up being one of those films that upsets me because I think," Man, if someone with just a bit more talent was directing, this film would've been great." Oh well.

Oddly enough, the movie actually starts out towards the end of the story then jumps back to show how it got there. The scene that the movie starts out with is actually one of the two scenes that I loved so technically you only have to watch the first minute or so of the movie to see one of the best scenes. :ganishka: Without context, it probably isn't as good though.

*I know that is pretty irrational. Even I think I'm not giving those movies a fair shake. I do plan on going back and watching them in the future now that time has passed so I can have a (hopefully) better opinion about not only those movies but the concept too.
 
Finally The Great Gatsby was released and I didnt waste a moment to go and see it since I read amazing novel in Literature classes and found out about this adaptation.
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Movie was pretty good. Performances felt strong,especially DiCaprio as Getsby( I wonder if he will get Oscar now :D ). Movie was long around 140min and still felt like if you blink you will miss something important. Anyway long story short 8.5/10 ,pretty good movie and really beautifull and somewhat faithful adaptation to one of greatest 20th century novels. And I watched it in 2D ,since I am not too fond of 3D.
 
Skeleton said:
It's a bit of a generic ghost movie. Y'know, the ones that always have the white-clad girl with her face covered by her hair going around killing folks.

Haha good description and I hear you, it's so overly used in the last 10/ 12 years that it loses it's affect for me unless the atmosphere or story make up for it. I found another version of the movie and it had French subs, I hate myself. The search is on.

Lukis said:
Movie was pretty good. Performances felt strong,especially DiCaprio as Getsby( I wonder if he will get Oscar now :D ). Movie was long around 140min and still felt like if you blink you will miss something important. Anyway long story short 8.5/10 ,pretty good movie and really beautifull and somewhat faithful adaptation to one of greatest 20th century novels. And I watched it in 2D ,since I am not too fond of 3D.

Ohh cool, nice to know. I haven't read the book but I caught an interview with Leo where he talks of 2 books about Gatsby and how they took some things from both books essentially. I think it's hard for any film-maker to get good reviews when they're adapting a classic novel such as that, there's a lot you'd have to skip because of a film's time constraint unless it warrants multiple movies to cover the subject.

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On Saturday I hit up the city, almost got Go Go Curry cos we got there a little early for the 7:45 show of Upstream Color at IFC, which reminds me there's a cool movie coming up on June 07, will post a trailer for that in the other topic. Coming back to Upstream Color, for folks who watched Primer, it's not similar at all, differences itself from being emotional driven but yes, science is at play in a big way. The one thing you can rely on though is that feeling of satisfaction once you've watched it, either for appreciating it for being a different kind of story (if you didn't like it overall) or liking it straight up. It may warrant another watch (not as much of a puzzle as Primer but there are things you may not pick in the beginning and other things that make SO much sense ... just reminds you how meticulous Carruth treats the story, we can discuss if you like ^_^ ??), in my case it was fun watching it a second time and found myself smiling involuntarily. The main cast is pretty good and the soundtrack is brilliant, courtesy of Carruth himself. In my mind, he's a director to watch out for if you want intelligent cinema. 9/10. Could be disappointing for some expecting another Primer.
 
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I actually went and watched Star Trek: Into The Darkness last saturday and it was quite fun movie and sucessful sequel to the first one. As usually there were fun moments between Kirk and Spock ,though I felt that movie was pushing itself to more dramatic and serious,though god damn ,I can never take PG-12 movies that seriously. (Damn I want superhero movies like The Watchmen) . Movie was fun,nice special effects ,Simon Pegg had his moments. Loved the scene between Kirk and Spock around the end and how
Spock changed because of Kirk
,that was pretty cool. If you have seen movie you probably know what I'm talking about. I kinda disliked
Khan
,fuck him. Anyway this is worth watching,seriously. 8/10
 

Johnstantine

Skibbidy Boo Bop
Lukis said:
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I actually went and watched Star Trek: Into The Darkness last saturday and it was quite fun movie and sucessful sequel to the first one. As usually there were fun moments between Kirk and Spock ,though I felt that movie was pushing itself to more dramatic and serious,though god damn ,I can never take PG-12 movies that seriously. (Damn I want superhero movies like The Watchmen) . Movie was fun,nice special effects ,Simon Pegg had his moments. Loved the scene between Kirk and Spock around the end and how Spock changed because of Kirk,that was pretty cool. If you have seen movie you probably know what I'm talking about. I kinda disliked
Khan
,fuck him. Anyway this is worth watching,seriously. 8/10

I'd put the part about
Khan
in spoiler tags.
 
I got to see Star Trek Into Darkness for the second time tonight and it didn't fall short on the second viewing at all.
I was hoping that this movie would continue from where it left off and not feel like a completely different movie as some sequel's unintentionally end up doing. Kirk, Spock and the whole cast were as I remember them from the first movie but had progressed, or not, as I would expect them to. The real draw for me however was seeing how they would pull off
Khan.

First off they picked the right actor to play him and second they crafted an origin story that was close enough to the original to work but original enough to give a fresh spin. The end result was fantastic. Cumberbach commanded just about every scene he was in and really created a worthy adversary that the first movie was sorely lacking. Criticisms about his skin color and accent is neat-picky in my opinion, the performance is what counts. Tom Hardy didn't resemble Bane but delivered a similar performance. The only grip I had was it felt like the whole
Kirk dieing and being revived thing was a kind of a stretch,
but I could live with it.

Other than that was really enjoyed the action, the twists and the special effects of the movie, it was a great way to start off the summer movie season.
 

Griffith

With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
Star Trek Into Darkness... indeed. SPOILERIFIC discussion ahead. Don't read if you want to go in fresh and untainted for the experience.

It wasn't a bad movie, but unlike the clever and exhilarating last one, it was mediocre at best, and did enough things poorly to really bug me. The same tricks that made the last movie fresh only made this one seem shallow. I'm used to people talking intelligently in Star Trek, and while there was plenty of talk in this, none of it was very intelligent or very interesting (some of the supposedly poignant moments were laughable). Then again, I'm used to watching ToS, written by some of the best Sci-Fi authors of the 1960's, not Damien Lindelof, a genre hack with absolutely no intellectual chops in his writing. Also, it's reliance on nostalgia and fan-service, something the last movie balanced just right and the key to its success, that it wasn't a reboot, is the downfall of this one and vice versa (so they even sort of ruined what was the best thing about the first one). What about the change in the timeline turned everyone British, exactly? Come to think of it, why was Spock's mom a brunette... like I said, this movie is actually making me think less of the last one. I could go into many specific details, but why waste my time when there's one prime example...

JoeZeon said:
First off they picked the right actor to play him and second they crafted an origin story that was close enough to the original to work but original enough to give a fresh spin. The end result was fantastic. Cumberbach commanded just about every scene he was in and really created a worthy adversary that the first movie was sorely lacking. Criticisms about his skin color and accent is neat-picky in my opinion, the performance is what counts. Tom Hardy didn't resemble Bane but delivered a similar performance.

That's quite the loving apology, if only because the exact opposite is true from where I sit. No fault of his own, but Cumberbatch was completely miscast, though the part itself and surrounding plot was a poorly written bore anyway. I would have rather he just been a henchmen because that's all it amounted to. In any case, the complaints about his casting aren't unfounded nitpicks. Beyond the legitimate complaints of whitewashing (and running from it through otherwise worthless deceptions), it didn't resemble the character in just about any way, superficial or deep. No wit, no charm, no charisma, no great intellect, no ethos, and it made him a completely shallow thug that was ultimately lame to boot. He was certainly no great adversary; he and Kirk barely interacted in any meaningful way since he didn't have much to do (at least Nero was destroying planets, and original, not a bastardization). Anyway, just because he has a cool voice doesn't mean it was some great reinterpretation; it was hardly any kind of interpretation but in name only. Also, it's technically supposed to be the same guy as before, so it's not truly analogous to TDKR's version of Bane, which also happened to be better written than this. It was more on the level of Venom in Spider-Man 3, and that's no exaggeration. Actually, one could say this is notably worse. I don't even know why they bothered because they clearly didn't care except as a formality to appeal to the lowest common denominator (most of the exposition concerning him is described off-screen, not even really part of the movie beyond a token reference). Like the Spider-Man 3 example, if they didn't really want to do it, all in, then they shouldn't have done it at all. I think I would have liked John Harrison much better (and really, it would have made no difference). Better than half-assed half-measures anyways.

JoeZeon said:
The only grip I had was it felt like the whole
Kirk dieing and being revived thing was a kind of a stretch,
but I could live with it.

Yeah... I actually didn't have a problem with what they were trying to do there, but they didn't pull it off (in part because the movie hadn't proved itself worthy for the above reasons), and they could have handled the specifics much better to make it more believable. Starting with Spock not being so damned oblivious. I thought that was driving his actions afterward! Highly illogical.

Anyway, I didn't even hate it, I was actually pretty entertained by the action and spectacle in the moment, but... fuckin eh, c'mon. The internet is right to dub it Star Trek Into Dumbness.
 

Griffith

With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
Walter said:
:magni: Should I even bother watching it in theatres...?

Hmmmm, it depends on how much you care about the Star Trek part (is the last movie just a fun tribute to ToS, or your favorite thing involving ToS?). It's a fun theater going experience if you just want to enjoy the ride, it's not like Abrams can't make a movie, and it does have some neat twists and turns to that end. It's basically a continuation of the last one, but I wanted more, and unlike last time where they treaded softly on sacred ground (somehow managing to be reverently irreverent), this time they trampled on it. It's not a bad summer movie, but it's a bad Star Trek movie. I have a feeling you might be shaking your head for different reasons though. I only addressed one very specific problem that kind of made the rest moot. =)
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
Griffith said:
Hmmmm, it depends on how much you care about the Star Trek part (is the last movie just a fun tribute to ToS, or your favorite thing involving ToS?). It's a fun theater going experience if you just want to enjoy the ride, it's not like Abrams can't make a movie, and it does have some neat twists and turns to that end. It's basically a continuation of the last one, but I wanted more, and unlike last time where they treaded softly on sacred ground (somehow managing to be reverently irreverent), this time they trampled on it. It's not a bad summer movie, but it's a bad Star Trek movie. I have a feeling you might be shaking your head for different reasons though. I only addressed one very specific problem that kind of made the rest moot. =)
If I have time, I'll try to see it before the next podcast (unlikely at this point), but I'll go in with low, low expectations. Maybe that'll help :ubik: .... Wait, script by Lindelof...? Hoo boy... :schierke:
 
I have a couple of movies to throw at you guys.

Moss

Moss is a whodunit/mystery/thriller about a man who thinks not everything is as it seems at his father's funeral. Now this movie was destroyed by American film critics. But I personally thought the film was decent. It wasn't great. But it was far from being as bad as the critics would lead you to believe. The main problem with it is it kind of lets the cat out of the bag literally in the very beginning of the film. So for 163 minutes the main character is running around trying to find out what we already know. There is still some mystery left for the end. But it's not much. And it's a bit underwhelming. But I personally enjoyed it.

I give Moss 4 Sundae out of 10. Give it a shot. If you don’t like it after 20-30 minutes then turn it off because you won’t make it to the end.

Mother

If Moss had a better story, great acting, and an infinitely better direction it would be called Mother. Mother is another whodunit/mystery/thriller about a woman and her intellectually handicapped son, who becomes the town’s scapegoat when a school girl is murdered one day. The mother must figure out the truth behind the murder before her son gets shipped off to prison.

Mother is really an amazing film. If you’re looking for a great mystery movie, this is it. The acting is out of this world. Hye-ja Kim was fantastic as the unnamed mother. And Bin Won, who played the son, was just as good. This wasn’t one of those mystery movies where the main character turns into Sherlock Holmes just as soon as a mystery needs to be solved. The mother is a poor woman who sells traditional medicine in a small(ish) town. She doesn’t have great resources, both financially and intellectually. Kim and the director perfectly capture her desperation and her struggle to overcome the limitations she has to solve the mystery. As you’d expect from a great film, it’s really realistic too. There aren’t any lucky coincidences. If it’d happen in real life, it happens. If it wouldn’t, it wouldn’t happen in the film.

I give Mother 9 Sundae out of 10. This movie has a score of 95% on Rotten Tomatoes. The Dark Knight has a score of 94%. Need I say more?

The Man From Nowhere

The Man From Nowhere is a vengeance/action movie about a man with a mysterious past who tries to save his neighbor from some shady folks.

The Man From Nowhere stars Bin Won, the actor who plays the son in Mother. Of course, he’s really good in this film too. The rest of the cast are quite solid as well. The action in this movie is where it’s at though. There were a couple of times I stood up and laughed because what I had seen was so awesome. The story itself will never win an award for originality. But everything else is so good that it makes up for what the story lacks.

I give The Man From Nowhere 7 Sundae out of 10. If you like action flicks, you’ll like this one.

The Chaser

The Chaser is a thriller about a retired-detective-turned-pimp who must figure out what’s going on when his stable of prostitutes starts to disappear.

I’ve wanted to watch this one for a while now because my favorite actress from Bedevilled is in this one too. Young-hee Seo was great and all, but this movie was so good that even her strong (and relatively small) performance was lost in the mix. The acting in this movie is top-notch. Yoon-seok Kim did a fantastic job of portraying the main character who isn’t a good guy at all. But he managed to hit that sweet spot where he’s just bad enough to make you think “man this guy’s a prick” without being so bad that you can’t root for him. Jung-woo Ha was fantastic as the bad guy of the film. And Hong-jin Na’s directing is second to none. Na has some serious talent. I have a feeling all his films are going to be great.

I give The Chaser 8 Sundae out of 10. The story was pretty good, but I think it could’ve been so much better if Na had written it from scratch. But because it’s based on a true story it limits the directions the story can go in. If he created the story from nothing it would’ve been as great as…

The Yellow Sea

The Yellow Sea is a thriller about a taxi driver from the Yanbian Province of China. He owes a ton of money to some local thugs, and the opportunity to pay the debt off in full comes up when he’s introduced to a man who will give him the exact amount of money he needs. But to get the money he must murder a man in South Korea. Hilarity ensues.

I actually stumbled upon this movie by accident. Later I realized it was written and directed by Hong-jin Na. In fact, this is the second of (so far) two movies that Na has made. He even pulled a Nolan and had some of the stars from The Chaser act in this one too. Specifically, Kim plays a main character and one of the bad guys, and Ha plays the taxi driver.

I’m going to be completely honest here. The Yellow Sea is fucking amazing. In fact, I can confidently say this is the best movie I’ve seen in a while. The acting is great. The directing is great. The story is great. Everything about this movie rocks. Now most (American) bloggers who have seen both of Na’s films prefer The Chaser over this one because the story in The Yellow Sea is a lot more complicated. They have problems understanding it. But you know what? Those people are idiots. Yes, the story is complicated. No, you sometimes don’t understand why something happens until later in the movie. But Na does a fantastic job with the story. If you pay attention almost everything is explained. (There’s only one part of the story that isn’t explained clearly. That’s because Na purposefully left it ambiguous, providing evidence to support both conclusions that can be drawn.)

I give The Yellow Sea 9.5 Sundae out of 10. I thought Cheol-soo Jang was the best Korean director I’d probably ever see. But Hong-jin Na is giving him a serious run for his money. I can’t wait to see what he comes up with next.




Tl;dr: Hong-jin Na is awesome. Watch The Chaser and/or The Yellow Sea. If you don’t like those films then you might as well ignore any movie reviews I give in the future because we clearly have different tastes.
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
Just got back from Star Trek: Into Darkness. Very disappointed.

I'm not going to go point by point. But fundamentally, it failed to exceed the original. It also loses points for trying to show off by bravely thumbing through some of the series' classic references only to have them come across as hamfisted, artificial and at times laughable (
I was chuckling during the infamous NAME SCREAM scene)
. Also,
"Hi we're Klingons, and we were only hired for this one action sequence."
Just deplorably vapid shit, all around. It played several ace cards, and still came up short.

It didn't bother me during the first movie that this wasn't really Star Trek. But this REALLY isn't Star Trek. If/when they make a third movie, they really need to reexamine what makes the series good. It isn't this.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Skeleton said:
The Chaser

The Chaser is a thriller about a retired-detective-turned-pimp who must figure out what’s going on when his stable of prostitutes starts to disappear.

I’ve wanted to watch this one for a while now because my favorite actress from Bedevilled is in this one too. Young-hee Seo was great and all, but this movie was so good that even her strong (and relatively small) performance was lost in the mix. The acting in this movie is top-notch. Yoon-seok Kim did a fantastic job of portraying the main character who isn’t a good guy at all. But he managed to hit that sweet spot where he’s just bad enough to make you think “man this guy’s a prick” without being so bad that you can’t root for him. Jung-woo Ha was fantastic as the bad guy of the film. And Hong-jin Na’s directing is second to none. Na has some serious talent. I have a feeling all his films are going to be great.

I give The Chaser 8 Sundae out of 10. The story was pretty good, but I think it could’ve been so much better if Na had written it from scratch. But because it’s based on a true story it limits the directions the story can go in. If he created the story from nothing it would’ve been as great as…

I saw this a while back. Honestly I had mixed feelings about it. I think it falls into the trappings of Asian storytelling, specifically that
there always has to be some sort of surprise tragic ending, with the woman dying after all, that kind of shit.
It was well done in many ways, the acting, directing, etc. but to me that flaw in the plot really brought it down.
 
Good list, Skeleton, watched them all except Moss. I preferred Mother's cinematography over the rest but The Yellow Sea is a more entertaining flick for sure. The Chaser turned out better than I expected. Recommend you and Aazealh check out I Saw The Devil, it's a fun ride.
 
Aazealh said:
I saw this a while back. Honestly I had mixed feelings about it. I think it falls into the trappings of Asian storytelling, specifically that
there always has to be some sort of surprise tragic ending, with the woman dying after all, that kind of shit.
It was well done in many ways, the acting, directing, etc. but to me that flaw in the plot really brought it down.

I agree with you completely. I didn't like that either.

That’s another reason why I prefer The Yellow Sea over The Chaser. While The Yellow Sea certainly isn't all rainbows and puppies, it doesn’t have something like that in it. Maybe Na learned from his mistake and made sure not to do it with his second film?

I'm really glad you brought that up though.
I noticed that the majority of the Asian films I've watched are either outright depressing or aren't utterly depressing but have a "punch to the gut" moment in them. I didn't know if that was just me being overly sensitive or something. But it’s good to see that it wasn’t just me who noticed that. Is that a cultural thing in the sense that Korean audiences want/like that tragedy in their thriller movies? Or is it an expectation of the genre? In other words, they’re making a thriller so they feel they have to put a tragic scene in the movie?
(I don't know if any of that needed spoiler tags, but I put them in case it needed them.)

IncantatioN said:
Good list, Skeleton, watched them all except Moss. I preferred Mother's cinematography over the rest but The Yellow Sea is a more entertaining flick for sure. The Chaser turned out better than I expected. Recommend you and Aazealh check out I Saw The Devil, it's a fun ride.

You’re right about Mother. The only reason why it didn’t have the highest score on my list is simply because I’m not a terribly big fan of whodunits. I enjoy them. And I enjoyed Mother. But I much prefer the horror and thriller genres. With that said, I probably screwed over Mother a little. It should’ve taken the number one spot on my list. But what are you gonna do? The judge is biased. :ganishka:

Oddly enough I watched I Saw The Devil this morning. I thought it was pretty good. The actor who played the bad guy was really good, especially towards the end. It was very easy to hate him
and enjoy seeing his ass get beaten down so many times.
I really liked how they handled the ending, making it so that
you feel like a bit of an asshole for cheering on the husband the entire time when you find out that all of it was ultimately kind of futile, and he had gotten a lot of good people injured or killed (the sister-in-law’s death was the one that hit me the hardest) as he worked towards his impossible goal. The killer was so psychopathic, so mentally gone, that the husband would never be able to get the fear and pain out of him that he was striving for. It turns out the one thing the killer didn’t want was to die. And that was the one thing besides turning him in that the husband wouldn’t do until his plan blew up in his face.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Skeleton said:
I'm really glad you brought that up though.
I noticed that the majority of the Asian films I've watched are either outright depressing or aren't utterly depressing but have a "punch to the gut" moment in them. I didn't know if that was just me being overly sensitive or something. But it’s good to see that it wasn’t just me who noticed that. Is that a cultural thing in the sense that Korean audiences want/like that tragedy in their thriller movies? Or is it an expectation of the genre? In other words, they’re making a thriller so they feel they have to put a tragic scene in the movie?
(I don't know if any of that needed spoiler tags, but I put them in case it needed them.)

It's cultural in Asia in general, not just Korea.
 
I'd partially agree with that but it isn't the case in all movies. Most 'Thriller's you've watched recently are Revenge based Action or Drama flicks. There're different kinds of Thriller's (compare Infernal Affairs to I Saw The Devil to Perfect Blue to The Conversation to Insomnia to The Machinist and so forth) and the depressing bits that affect you tell you more about the quality of the film rather than point to being a certain stereotype within that genre. The film I watched last night had a certain element of the same, but it's the way it's portrayed or what the story demands of it to make it effective or the kind of film-maker behind it.
 
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