What asian film/series have you just seen.. marks out of 5

[HungFist]

Alien vs. Ninja (Japan, 2010) 4/5
If it bleeds, ninjas can kill it! The first wave of Sushi Typhoon titles, a Nikkatsu sub-label created to produce cool films only, opens with Seiji Chiba’s directorial effort assisted by two full time action directors: Yuji Shimomura (Versus) and Kensuke Sonomura (Hard Revenge Milly: Bloody Battle). It’s a “storyline go fuck yourself” affair all about a death match between violent ninjas and sleazy aliens. Alien vs. Ninja is tongue in the cheek action fun with mini budget but high flying imagination. Guts and body parts are splatter over the battle ground, but serious brutality is kept to minimum, and the some of the plentiful humor would even make old school Hong Kong audiences blush. Special effects and creature design rely on traditional handwork and men in rubber suits, with occasional silly CG effect purely played for laughs. While the film could do with slightly more serious tone and more gore, the over-the-top inventiveness was greeted by an enthusiastic festival audience with big applauses 6 or 7 times during the film. Talk about crowd pleaser.

[HungFist]

Mutant Girls Squad (Japan, 2010) – 3.5/5

Ass chainsaw, breast swords, Astro-Mutant. Do I need to say more?

The third announced but first released Sushi Typhoon film draws the cult factory’s main aces from the pocket: Tak Sakaguchi, Noboru Iguchi, and Yoshihiro Nishimura. The action / comedy / special effects trio was each assigned to do what they best know (although Iguchi doesn’t know anything very well). The outcome is an Iguchi scripted, Sakaguchi choreographed and Nishimura splattered action comedy for which each of the directors helmed one third. Sakaguchi’s action packed opening sets up the story of a 16 year old Rin, who is to play a role in the soon to come humans vs. mutants war. Iguchi’s Sukeban Deka inspired training section follows, until Nishimura finally owns the pic with his insane special effects showdown that required him to purchase a new pump to handle all the blood. Despite Iguchi’s slightly lesser middle third the film is inventive and energetic low budget gore fun that overcomes its production values with a vengeance. CGI gore in the first two episodes is the main distraction, but soon forgiven as the X-Men esque girl trio starts raping men with their mutant tentacle noses.

[grim_tales]

Fist of Fury: 5/5

An absolutely classic film, Bruce Lee's best film for sure and one of the best MA films of all time

[Yi-Long]

Hansel and Gretel 4/5

Amazing looking korean movie about a young man who gets in an accident in the forest, looks for help, and stumbles upon a house with a family. And now he can't leave.

Very nice fairy tale flick (not a horror!) with a visual style that is a nice blend of Amelie and Tim Burton's stuff, plus a couple of the camera-tricks and motions of David Lynch. It's one of the visually most stunning movies I've seen in a very long time.

The actors involved are all excellent, and that includes the children.

Story-wise it might be a little bit too 'long' in the 2nd half of the movie, but all is forgiven when a movie does so many things so well.

Don't go in expecting an asian horror-flick and you will definitely enjoy this.

4/5

[saltysam]

Little Big Soldier 2/5 Jackie Chan's latest asian movie is better than most of his western output but is still a fairly average affair,worth a watch but not a keeper for me.

[Xenon]

Public Enemy (2002) - a great comedy with some dark overtones. I'm not a fan of asian comedies because they rarely work and most of the time just look stupid to us foreigners because of cultural differences (and shitty acting), but this one actually worked.

[Shingster]

I'm not a fan of asian comedies because they rarely work and most of the time just look stupid to us foreigners because of cultural differences (and shitty acting), but this one actually worked.

Total load of bollocks.

[Xenon]

I'm not a fan of asian comedies because they rarely work and most of the time just look stupid to us foreigners because of cultural differences (and shitty acting), but this one actually worked.

Total load of bollocks.

Can you at least name 10 good asian comedies then?

[HungFist]

Public Enemy (2002) - a great comedy with some dark overtones. I'm not a fan of asian comedies because they rarely work and most of the time just look stupid to us foreigners because of cultural differences (and shitty acting), but this one actually worked.

So you're basically saying you're so dumb you can't understand comedy from foreign countries. Well, you have nothing to worry about. Hollywood is producing plenty of tailor made comedy for you. If you watch TV sitcoms you'll even get the laugh track so you know when is the time to laugh

10 films
Symbol (this is the most I have laughed in years)
Dai nipponjin
Vampire Girl vs Frankenstein Girl
From Beijing With Love
King of Comedy
My Sassy Girl
Secret Chronicle: Prostitute Market
Yatterman
Fall Guy
Realism no yado

[Xenon]

So you're basically saying you're so dumb you can't understand comedy from foreign countries. Well, you have nothing to worry about. Hollywood is producing plenty of tailor made comedy for you.

What I'm saying is that many asian comedies like to go so much over the top with the acting and comedy situations, that it's not even funny (for example Aces Go Places 3, Attack the Gas Station 2, I think Robogeisha also tried to be funny or something). I'm not saying that all of them are bad (Monday and Attack the Gas Station are some of my favorites), it's just that they often overdo it. And I'll be sure to check some movies for your list - thanks.

[gasteropod]

I'm currently watching Turtles Are Surprisingly Fast Swimmers and it's really funny! So check that one out.

[HungFist]

Turtles. Juri Ueno!

Always wanted to see, but was never satisfied with the dvd options. UK is standards conversion with edge enhancement, and the R2J either had even more ee, or the contrast was worse. I just remember at least one aspect was worse than on the UK... too bad R1 hasn't appeared.

[gasteropod]

I watched it streamed from Lovefilm (currently on a free trial), it looked fine on my laptop. I could stream Lovefilm through my PS3 but the picture quality looks rubbish on my HDTV so I've been using my laptop instead.

[Markgway]

From Beijing With Love
King of Comedy

Oddly two of my least favourite Stephen Chow comedies.

[bradavon]

I don't get Asian comedy either. I can only think of My Sassy Girl, although I've not seen half as much as Hung. I don't get much American comedy either though. So many American comedy films are just utter rubbish, with no wit to speak of at all.

Despite being action comedies, I don't think (maybe I have) I've ever laughed at a Jackie Chan film.

[Shingster]

Can you at least name 10 good asian comedies then?

You're relatively new here Xenon so let me fill you in on one small fact you might be overlooking about us regulars on this board: We've seen a lot of Asian films! My only response to your challenge here is: 10? What type of comedies do you want me to concentrate on? Slapstick, farce, screwball, minimalist, spoof, gross-out, adult, satirical, black???

Japanese comedy in particular is as broad and varied a genre as any in the West. Most HK film fans tend to forget this and just tar the whole of Asia with the same brush, comedically speaking.

[grim_tales]

I thought From Beijing with Love was very funny I also liked Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle a lot.

[bradavon]

You're relatively new here Xenon so let me fill you in on one small fact you might be overlooking about us regulars on this board: We've seen a lot of Asian films!

There's no need to be patronising.

[Xenon]

You're relatively new here Xenon so let me fill you in on one small fact you might be overlooking about us regulars on this board: We've seen a lot of Asian films! My only response to your challenge here is: 10? What type of comedies do you want me to concentrate on? Slapstick, farce, screwball, minimalist, spoof, gross-out, adult, satirical, black???

Challenge? What challenge? I asked for 10 movies because, unfortunately, I don't have as much time to watch movies as I would like, so ten comedies will probably last me at least a few months. My fav comedy genres would be slapstick, satirical and black. And I "kinda" noticed that most of you guys are seriously into asian movies and that was the main reason of me joining Bullets N Babes. Peace.

[Shingster]

There's no need to be patronising.

The only reason you're standing up for Xenon is that you're just as ignorant about Asian comedy as he is, in fact you're more ignorant because you've been hanging around these forums like a bad stench for years now and you STILL know bugger all about or watch bugger all Asian cinema!

If you can't see how a newcomer to a hardcore Asian film forum making the most general of statements like "this entire genre rarely works and us foreigners rarely understand them - oh and the acting is shitty!!" is going to invite a rather hostile response then you're seriously naive. I'm a foreigner and I, like thousands of Asian film fans in the west and all the non asian-film watching Englishmen who I've introduced to the odd Asian comedy now and then, have had no problems following most of the humour in any foreign comedy film - unless it's all wordplay that cannot be translated.

Xenon: Your response was a flippant challenge and you know it: "name at least 10 Asian comedies then". I may have been rude to you in response and I will apologise for that, but the condecension had a point: We've all seen enough comedy films to give you a very general list, but it's no use to you if we don't know what sub-genres you like. Now you've given me a more specific field to think about (and it's clear you seem to lean towards Korean comedy) then how about this:

The Foul King
The Quiet Family
Break Out: Spark the Lighter
Save the Green Planet and Memories of Murder (not strictly comedies, more dramadies but both have very black humour)
My Sassy Girl
Kick the Moon and Jailbreakers (I offer these only because they're Kim Sang-jin's follow ups to Attack the Gas Station and they're similar types of comedy)
No. 3
Barking Dogs Never Bite
My Wife is a Gangster
Hi, Dharma (Not as good as Masayuki Suo's Buddhist Monk comedy: Fany Dance)

That's just off the top of my head and Korean Comedy is generally hard to nail down in specific lists because most Korean films are hard to categorise purely by a single genre. Now if we're talking Japanese comedy then that would demand a much more serious list (which I don't have time to do right now) but stick to anything by Masayuki Suo, Mitani Kouki, and certain films by Juzo Itami, Shinobu Yaguchi and Nobuhiro Yamashita, then you can't go wrong.

[grim_tales]

Save the Green Planet is a very good film, that had dark humour but was pretty sad too IMO.

[Xenon]

If you can't see how a newcomer to a hardcore Asian film forum making the most general of statements like "this entire genre rarely works and us foreigners rarely understand them - oh and the acting is shitty!!" is going to invite a rather hostile response then you're seriously naive.

Maybe I made too big of a generalization, but I still stand by my statement that asians often over-act comedic situations, thus making them less enjoyable. Also I wouldn't really say that any of the responses that I got were hostile. Nice community you got here, people.

Xenon: Your response was a flippant challenge and you know it: "name at least 10 Asian comedies then". I may have been rude to you in response and I will apologise for that, but the condecension had a point: We've all seen enough comedy films to give you a very general list, but it's no use to you if we don't know what sub-genres you like. Now you've given me a more specific field to think about (and it's clear you seem to lean towards Korean comedy)

1) Flippant? No. (I had to look up the definition of the word in the dictionary lol. And to think that I almost have an academic degree in English philology )
2) You weren't rude, you only stated your opinion, so there is no need to apologize.
3) I'm leaning towards Korean comedy?
4) Thank you for the list.

[Yi-Long]

I'm kinda on the fence on this.

While I wouldn't think of throwing all the different comedic asian movies on one heap and labeling them (basically) 'garbage', cause as mentioned before, there's just a lot of different stuff to explore and possibly enjoy...

... I CAN kinda understand where Xenon is coming from. Especially when he's a newcomer. Let's be honest, the best comedy isn't in the more 'popular' movies which most of us started out with. It takes most of us a while to discover the gems, through sheer luck or through forums like these.

And just as in american cinema, there are a whole bunch of 'popular' comedies which are also stinkers to many of us. Some love Bowfinger and Tropic Thunder, and I think they're horrible. Just like I think a whole lot of the comedy in Hong Kong cinema is horrible.

We have all been through it. We all watched those 70's and 80's action flicks, where some cool action was followed by low-level and horrible 'comedy', which for most of us probably didn't work on any level (and probably also didn't work for the local HK audience btw...)

I can understand the need to lash out when Brad hasn't been acting like a complete tool for a while now, cause let's face it, the drama has been pretty low here lately... but let's not overreact to people coming here who are pretty new to this all...

[Xenon]

I can understand the need to lash out when Brad hasn't been acting like a complete tool for a while now, cause let's face it, the drama has been pretty low here lately... but let's not overreact to people coming here who are pretty new to this all...

I'm new to this forum, not to Asian cinema.

[bradavon]

The only reason you're standing up for Xenon is that you're just as ignorant about Asian comedy as he is, in fact you're more ignorant because you've been hanging around these forums like a bad stench for years now and you STILL know bugger all about or watch bugger all Asian cinema!

As ignorant possibly. The only reason I commented, no. Newcomers should be made to feel welcome. This forum stopped being a hardcore Asian film forum many years ago. There's as much non-Asian film discussion as there is. So your point is a bit outdated on that one.

We have all been through it. We all watched those 70's and 80's action flicks, where some cool action was followed by low-level and horrible 'comedy', which for most of us probably didn't work on any level (and probably also didn't work for the local HK audience btw...)

Jackie Chan films fit into that category for me and I've seen enough of those, to feel I can make a judgement on them.

I can understand the need to lash out when Brad hasn't been acting like a complete tool for a while now, cause let's face it, the drama has been pretty low here lately... but let's not overreact to people coming here who are pretty new to this all...

Thanks, I think. I'm sure there's a backhanded compliment in there somewhere. I've not been posting as much. I cannot afford to buy films/go to the cinema at the moment, so am taking a little less interest in it. Oh god, don't bring me into this discussion though .