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Gringo Heisenberg
May 30, 2009




:dukedog:
I really disliked Spring, Summer, etc etc, because of how slow and quiet it was, would I still like Pieta?

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RightClickSaveAs
Mar 1, 2001

Tiny animals under glass... Smaller than sand...


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.

Some Guy TT
Aug 30, 2011

Compared to Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring, Pieta has more proactive characters, more deliberately extreme plot events, and covers a much shorter period of time. If your only problem with the former was that it was overly slow and quiet, these aren't problems you're likely to find in Pieta.



Who here is in their mid-twenties feeling helpless in the face of modern pressure treating us like crap because we're not taking the world by storm with a smile? The Room Nearby is your film. Eon-Joo is a young woman attempting to become conventionally successful. Her life is miserable, but not miserable enough for complaining to feel socially acceptable. So she just ends up lashing out at whatever happens to be nearby. I would definitely describe this as a slow, quiet film, though, so don't go in expecting melodrama.

fake edit: Also the title literally translates as "(plural feminine pronoun)'s room". I have no idea where the "nearby" comes from.

Some Guy TT
Aug 30, 2011



I don't recommend My Beautiful Girl, Mari, but animated Korean films are so sparse I figured it's at least worth a mention. It's a normal coming-of-age story that involves a mystical otherworld. The animation in here is really great and I love the otherworld sequences. But the story's just a giant mess. There's exactly one character too many, and none of the magical events have clear parallels with the mundane story. It's a shame, given how great it looks when the art style really gets a chance to get rolling. Also, there's an English dub. It's terrible. Watch it in Korean if anything.

deviltry
Nov 1, 2010

"Don't be humble. You're not that great."
I just have to thank the goons on this thread.

I added 200 Pound Beauty and The Thieves to my Netflix. Got around to watching them -- pretty awesome in their different ways and I'm psyched to get into more Korean cinema.
:)

Tornhelm posted:

I just did something stupid and watched Secret Garden and 49 Days in-between playing The Walking Dead. I need something light, possibly a Rom-Com. I've previously seen I'm A Cyborg, 200 Pound Beauty, My Tutor Friend 1/2 and Skip Beat/Extravagant Challenge (even though its Taiwanese). Does anyone have any suggestions on movies/shows I can watch to somewhat restore my faith in humanity?

xzoto1
Jan 18, 2010

How's life in a bigger prison, Dae-su?

Gringo Heisenberg posted:

I really disliked Spring, Summer, etc etc, because of how slow and quiet it was, would I still like Pieta?

Hard to say... It's rather slow moving as well. It's also incredibly bleak and emotionally exhausting. It's certainly worth a look.

Bugblatter
Aug 4, 2003

RightClickSaveAs posted:

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.

This could be said for every one of Kim Ki-Duk's films. All great. All downers.

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD
Sep 14, 2007

everything is yours
I need to see Pieta but I don't know if I'm ready for a Kim Ki-Duk movie right now.

Ironlung37
May 16, 2005
I couldn't even make it passed 5 minutes of Pieta. I felt like I was watching a made for tv movie on the lifetime channel. After watching so many amazingly shot movies like the Vengeance trilogy, or The Good, The Bad, and The Weird, I've been spoiled. If you go in expecting the normal meticulously shot South Korean movies you're used to, you'll be disappointed.

monster on a stick
Apr 29, 2013
Not a review, but looking for recommendations.

I'm a huge fan of excellent cinematography. I love Wong Kar-wai films because of Christopher Doyle. I see films that Roger Deakins worked on because of him. Conrad Hall did some amazing stuff (like Road to Perdition.) All different but they regularly go above and beyond what others do.

blinkeve1826
Jul 26, 2005

WELCOME TO THE NEW DEATH
So apparently there are free Korean film screenings every other Tuesday night at Tribeca Cinemas in NYC? Tonight at 7PM is "Sunny", a comedy I know little about aside from that it's from the same director/screenwriter as Speedy Scandal, which is one of my favorite Korean movies. I'll be there--anyone else going? Feel free to PM me if you wanna meet up.

Bugblatter
Aug 4, 2003

monster on a stick posted:

Not a review, but looking for recommendations.

I'm a huge fan of excellent cinematography. I love Wong Kar-wai films because of Christopher Doyle. I see films that Roger Deakins worked on because of him. Conrad Hall did some amazing stuff (like Road to Perdition.) All different but they regularly go above and beyond what others do.

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.

ulvir
Jan 2, 2005

Finally got around to watch National Security last night. I don't think I've ever seen torture scenes this brutal in a film before. I almost felt exhausted by the time the end credits rolled.

RightClickSaveAs
Mar 1, 2001

Tiny animals under glass... Smaller than sand...


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.
The Tale of Two Sisters director also worked with the same cinematographer, Mo-gae Lee, for The Good, the Bad, the Weird and I Saw the Devil, two very good movies but also very different in tone. Good-Bad-Weird I especially remember being beautifully filmed.

Some Guy TT
Aug 30, 2011

ulvir posted:

Finally got around to watch National Security last night. I don't think I've ever seen torture scenes this brutal in a film before. I almost felt exhausted by the time the end credits rolled.

I find it makes interesting comparison with Zero Dark Thirty. In both films, the torturers are worried about their jobs and vent about having a bad day. But the context makes a huge difference- in National Security their concerns come off as petty and sociopathic, while in Zero Dark Thirty they're basically sympathetic. And most of this has to do with the way the torture is presented. For all the hullabaloo about torture in Zero Dark Thirty, what they showed was really sanitized and almost always justified in context. In National Security, not only do we see full-on waterboarding, we get to see the misery of the prisoner as he has to sit and wait helplessly for them to come do it again. I really found it impossible to see Zero Dark Thirty as being an anti-torture film in any way having already seen National Security.

So, anyone interested in the next Kim Ki-Duk joint, Moebius? Here's a teaser. And while we're on the subject of female protagonists hunting terrorists, here's a trailer for Cold Eyes, one of the major local releases for this summer. No English subtitles for either, but you don't really need them.



This one is for all the divorced mothers in Cinema Discusso. The Day After gives us a moment in the life of a woman who lives a stressful life. The film explores the how and why of her arrival at this point, and what ensues is a frank discussion that relates her experiences with that of other women in a similar situation. It's kind of like peeking into a consciousness-raising session, except there's no political overtones. Which makes it all the more refreshing and honest, since the film goes into a lot of material that's normally considered too trivial to merit serious discussion.

DeimosRising
Oct 17, 2005

¡Hola SEA!


The Thieves is on netflix instant now, just so you all know. I was looking at my dvd queue and noticed it.

Some Guy TT
Aug 30, 2011



Ever wonder why Korean gangster movies are such a big thing? It all traces back to The General's Son- the 1990 movie that was South Korea's first big successful box office picture, that in many ways set the tone for what the industry currently is. It takes place during Japanese-occupied Korea, where Korean gangsters fight the yakuza for control of the commercial districts. The main character is based on an actual historical figure, Kim Doo-Han. It had two sequels, but I've only seen the first one, since it's the most easily available. Personally, I think it's an all right gangster flick. More interesting for the historical context than the actual story.

Smapti
Jun 15, 2013
I'd like to mention that The Guard Post is now available on Netflix streaming; it's a flawed movie with many of the problems that dragged down the same director's last movie, R-Point (in particular: (1) an inability to follow through on a solid premise and (2) a bloated running time at odds with the economy that horror movies should have) but it's still worth seeing if you like K-Horror.

Also, The Thieves is one of the best movies I've seen in a long time. Amazingly entertaining.

Smapti fucked around with this message at 20:16 on Jun 15, 2013

Tornhelm
Jul 26, 2008

Edit: wrong Korea thread!

Tornhelm fucked around with this message at 07:45 on Jun 19, 2013

Some Guy TT
Aug 30, 2011



Members of the Funeral is an extremely dense meta-narrative about a boy who dies, and the family that comes to his wake to avoid talking about him. The title is the same as a fictional novel that the boy in the movie wrote, and it's never clear whether the scene we're watching is about the actual people or an adaptation of a scene from the book. It also screws around with audience perception by directly discussing literary technique and tropes, making it tremendously unclear how we're supposed to be interpreting scenes. Basically, this is the kind of film you could write a film studies paper about.

mornhaven
Sep 10, 2011
I recently watched Dancing Queen. I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it, as it wasn't something I would normally watch.

Some Guy TT
Aug 30, 2011



And the prize for longest, weirdest title goes to The Day a Pig Fell Into the Well. This is the first feature film by Hong Sang-Soo, and deals with the barely surviving interlocking relationships between several adults in Seoul. It's an exhaustively dense metaphor- much like the title. There's a much deeper, meaner cynicism goig on here than with Hong Sang-Soo's more recent work. It's a fairly subtle blend of bleak going on- enough to be clearly noticeable, and enough that the ending makes sense, though it's still a reasonably surprising one. I recommend it, but only for the patient.

3peat
May 6, 2010

Just seen New World, turned out to be pretty decent even tho I saw all the twists coming a mile away. drat I hadn't seen a good korean gangster movie in ages, tho it wasnt as entertaining as A Bittersweet Life, I did enjoy it a lot; I'd rank it about as high as A Dirty Carnival in my korean gangster movie scale.

Oh and even though the movie has only been out for a few months, apparently americans are already working on a remake

Gringo Heisenberg
May 30, 2009




:dukedog:
Oldboy remake poster and trailer.

http://movies.yahoo.com/video/oldboy-red-band-trailer-230022287.html



Don't think I'll be seeing it.

SUPERFINE CONCUBINE
Jun 28, 2008

☆ catgroove ☆
The only thing the Oldboy remake made me think is that I need to show the original to my my partner. She got to me watch The Count of Monte Cristo and described the story as "the best revenge tale", so I'm sure Oldboy will tickle her vengeful cockles.

Does anyone have any Joseon/period movies they could recommend for me? I own and love The King and the Clown, and finally got to catch Masquerade yesterday. I love looking at the costumes and architecture almost more than anything :shobon:

Stare-Out
Mar 11, 2010

Got some very interesting recommendations from this thread, thanks goons! I've been missing watching some good SK movies lately, especially after coming off I Saw The Devil, The Good, the Bad, the Weird, Thirst and Chaser, all of which I enjoyed immensely. Thirst is one of my favorite vampire films ever, hands down.

rvm
May 6, 2013
Confession Of Murder is just plain fun comic book movie. Yes, it's not based on manga, manhwa, comic book or anything like that, but you will get much more enjoyment out of it if you approach as if it was. It features over-the-top characters, villains, action scenes and twists. If you expect some serious mystery / suspense movie, though, you will probably be disappointed. The pacing is great, too: it's almost two hours long, but I actually thought it was much shorter, which is quite an achievement for what is basically a director's debut. One thing to note: I watched it not too long after I Saw The Devil and Chaser, though, so I'm not sure how uplifting this movie actually is when not compared to the bleakest noir.

Stare-Out
Mar 11, 2010

Just finished The Man From Nowhere and quite enjoyed it even though it was a bit run-of-the-mill at times. The tracking shot through the window was impressive as balls though.

Some Guy TT
Aug 30, 2011

SUPERFINE CONCUBINE posted:

Does anyone have any Joseon/period movies they could recommend for me? I own and love The King and the Clown, and finally got to catch Masquerade yesterday. I love looking at the costumes and architecture almost more than anything :shobon:

The Grand Heist will give you action and The Concubine will give you sex. I can't recommend either because I haven't seen them but those are the main recent names I'm familiar with. There's also Prince Yeonsan, which at fifty years is probably the oldest Joseon period film you could possibly watch. It's available at the Korean Film Archive's channel on Youtube.



You ever watched one of those awful reality TV shows just so you could mock the horrible people on it? The Story of Mr. Sorry is about people like you. Not them, you. It's a complex criticism of the idea that people who watch are superior to the ones being watched because we're more aware. In actuality, the film shows that we, too, have our own agendas as spectators and that we're not so different from the people who engage in this stuff unironically. So, heady stuff. And creepy animation.

Stare-Out
Mar 11, 2010

Yeah, Memories of Murder is the one to beat out of all the SK movies I've ever seen. I've been a fan of Song Kang-ho for a long while now and man does he shine in this. I'm so glad he's getting so much international recognition ever since The Host and now with the upcoming Snowpiercer.

This movie also reminded me a lot of David Fincher's Zodiac (which I adore), despite it coming out four years after Memories of Murder. Recommending the hell out of this in case someone hasn't seen it yet.

E: I also watched Frontline, which was tremendously well executed war film about a war I didn't really know much about. It dipped into some slightly cliché war movie melodrama a few times but otherwise, particularly when it came to the battle scenes, was really solid.

SUPERFINE CONCUBINE
Jun 28, 2008

☆ catgroove ☆

Some Guy TT posted:

The Grand Heist will give you action and The Concubine will give you sex. I can't recommend either because I haven't seen them but those are the main recent names I'm familiar with. There's also Prince Yeonsan, which at fifty years is probably the oldest Joseon period film you could possibly watch. It's available at the Korean Film Archive's channel on Youtube.

Thank you! I'll give them all a try when I'm next feeling fancy.

Mr. Unlucky
Nov 1, 2006

by R. Guyovich
Have you guys been following the Oldboy remake at all? I don't see how anyone could and still not think it's going to do the original justice, can't wait it's going to be amazing!

Dancer
May 23, 2011
Hey, so I would much like to see the Korean approach to sweetness. Think Little Manhattan, or Pushing Daisies, or 500 Days of Summer, or 5 cm per second (that one slightly less so, but still something I very much appreciate). Can anyone name some quality movies out there I could hunt down?

Morphix
May 21, 2003

by Reene
Can someone help me, I'm having a hell of a time finding the title of this movie.

But I saw it in theaters here in the states, it's about a ganster who has like a multi level hideout and South Korean cops gotta start at the bottom and like work their way up? It had some of the best fighting scenes in a movie I've seen since another Asian movie (south east asian movie about the dude that loves fighting with his elbows and did all the stunts! Ong BaK?)

Anyway, I've been searching for a week now and I guess my google-fu is hosed because I just keep coming up with crime stories about Asian on Asian violence.

Stare-Out
Mar 11, 2010

I haven't seen it but it sounds like you're talking about The Raid: Redemption.

Grim Up North
Dec 12, 2011

The Raid: Redemption if Jakarta, Indonesia is near enough to SK for you.

3peat
May 6, 2010

Dancer posted:

Hey, so I would much like to see the Korean approach to sweetness. Think Little Manhattan, or Pushing Daisies, or 500 Days of Summer, or 5 cm per second (that one slightly less so, but still something I very much appreciate). Can anyone name some quality movies out there I could hunt down?

My Sassy Girl, Sunny, Architecture 101

Grim Up North posted:

The Raid: Redemption if Jakarta, Indonesia is near enough to SK for you.

I don't know how someone could confuse Korean with whatever that Indonesian language was, they sound completely different even if you don't know either. Not to mention Koreans look pretty different from Indonesians

pigdog
Apr 23, 2004

by Smythe
All y'all look alike!

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

Some Guy TT
Aug 30, 2011



Our School E.T. is about one of those inspirational teachers who doesn't play by the books and so enriches all his students. The problem is that he doesn't improve their test scores at all so as far as most people are concerned he's just a bad, eccentric teacher. It's a bit of a weird movie because it's basically a comedy vehicle for the main actor, funnyman Kim Soo-Ro, but deliberately addresses social issues and controversial subjects while still making mainstream jokes. The contrast is an interesting one, though I wouldn't call this an exceptional film by any means.

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Gozinbulx
Feb 19, 2004
I watched New World last night. I'm not too familiar with Korean cinema (only seen Oldboy and The Host), but it was pretty drat good.

I found some interesting things in the movie I want to discuss but it seems like no one here, except one guy, has even mentioned it.

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