Moderator One Armed Boxer Posted January 6, 2016 Moderator Share Posted January 6, 2016 It's that time of year again when, now that the hangovers have subsided, the number of pounds gained have been totaled, and the new years resolutions have already been broken, we can get to the important stuff and think about what our favorite Asian movies were that we got to check out in 2015. Just like in 2014, I detailed my Top 15 over at cityonfire, and can now in retrospect say that I watched more good than bad. But when I did watch bad, it got really bad ('Memories of the Sword' I'm looking at you). Check out the full feature here - http://www.cityonfire.com/our-top-15-watched-movies-of-2015/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Secret Executioner Posted January 6, 2016 Member Share Posted January 6, 2016 Maybe not favorites, but the most memorable ones for this year (excluding re-watches): The Five Venoms (HK, 1978): great action with creative techniques, some enjoyable characters. The Human Lanterns (HK, 1982): Lo Lieh is just awesome as that completely insane killer. Bat without Wings (HK, 1980): the killer looks like KISS' Gene Simmons and the movie has great traps. Loved it. The Pirate (HK, 1973): great performance by Ti Lung, Fan Mai Sheng is awesome as that rival pirate and David Chiang is great as a government official who's after Ti Lung (I also love how he opens a can of whoop to exit a casino).- The Blood Brothers (HK, 1973): not exactly a movie I found great, but it has great stuff such as an ending that made me so angry and Ti Lung's character being such a bastard (who rocks the 'stache BTW). New One-armed Swordsman (HK, 1971): David Chiang's most solid performance I've seen (that or The Pirate, not too sure), Ku Feng is at his best as that despicable lord/gang leader and the action is pretty impressive too. Ti Lung is also great as a nice but a bit too stubborn swordsman. Shaolin Martial Arts (Taiwan, 1974): great cast, great choreography, investing story (with a happy ending for once) and probably my fav' fight in any Shaw Brothers I've seen (Bruce Tong and Gordon Liu against Leung Kar Yan and Wang Lung Wei) Return to the 36th Chamber (HK, 1980): a brilliant sequel to a classic, with lots of funny moments, a great performance by Gordon Liu and a creative Fu style. Master of the Flying Guillotine (HK, 1976): awesome music, awesome villain, great action and some completely OTT moments - sign me in, this is probably the greatest MA movie ever. Beach of the War Gods (HK, 1973): a movie where Jimmy Wang Yu gets to keep both his arms, but so many die. Beyond the heroic bloodshed, kudos to the characterization, the creativity of the traps and to the great visuals that make this a great China vs Japan epic. The one armed Boxer (HK, 1971): not as overly epic and OTT as its "sequel", but with the colorful villains (including Lung Fei as a Karate master who chops Wang Yu's arm off with his bare hand) and the crazy action in the final act, this one is definitely worth a mention. Project A (HK, 1983): a great Jackie Chan movie with lots of hilarious moments, great action (that brawl between cops and coast guard early on is my favorite action scene in this) and a solid cast (including Yuen Biao and Sammo). Probably my fav' Jackie movie so far. Tigers at Top (Taiwan, 1975): that one's really weak actually, but the villain's hypnotic style was odd enough to remain in mind. Gamera vs. Viras (Japan, 1968): a giant turtle fighting a squid from outerspace, kids that are smarter than scientists... Typical Kaiju cheese, but boy is it a fun one. Gamera vs. Guiron (Japan, 1969): a psychotic monster that looks like a kitchen knife with four legs, sexy alien villainesses, kids whose main concern when kidnapped is they are hungry, a race in space between a spaceship and a giant turtle (with a Beatles-like version of the Gamera march), a cameo by Gyaos (with a different color and a bloody ending)... More Kaiju cheese. Hill of Freedom (South Korea, 2014): a nice little movie from Hong Sang-soo that has many of the director's tropes as well as a narrative as jumbled as a bunch of letters you dropped, cause that's how it's told - from letters that are in disorder because the person who received them tripped and dropped them, losing one in the process. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member DrNgor Posted January 6, 2016 Member Share Posted January 6, 2016 These are movies that I watched for the first time (and in no particular order): 1. Seven Steps of Kung Fu 2. Kung Fu Master Named Drunk Cat 3. Special ID 4. Swift Shaolin Boxer 5. Ip Man: The Final Fight 6. Lion vs. Lion 7. Flying Guillotines 2 8. Death Duel in Kung Fu 9. Blooded Treasury Fight 10. Burning Ambition 11. Fighter in the Wind 12. Come Drink With Me 13. The Chinese Boxer 14. Brave Girl Boxer from Shanghai 15. Hapkido Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member masterofoneinchpunch Posted January 6, 2016 Member Share Posted January 6, 2016 Since the title of the thread is favorite Asian films of the year I will include rewatches (I will use RW to flag it): The Mission (1999: Johnnie To) Hong Kong RW: I've seen this several times. I feel that this is one of the most important Hong Kong films and it is in my top 100 films of all countries. Check out my review in the link (I noticed the formatting has changed on that, I will fix that later.) Crippled Avengers (1978: Chang Cheh) Hong Kong RW: One of my favorite MA films of all-time. Yes I like it more than Five Venoms. Tora-San (Otoko wa tsurai yo) (1969: Yoji Yamada) Japan: I really liked this first entry in one of the longest running series of all-time (not as many as Kwan Tak-hing's Wong Fei-hung though.) The New One-Armed Swordsman (1971: Chang Cheh) Hong Kong: I'm a big Chang Cheh fan and this was my first watch of it. Dragons Forever (1988: Sammo Hung) Hong Kong: No this is not a rewatch. One of the biggest known MA/action films I had not seen before. I was so happy to finally have seen this. Quite enjoyable. Five Venoms (1978: Chang Cheh) Hong Kong RW: Influential film that keeps on getting better with each rewatch. The Loyal 47 Ronin (1941: Kenji Mizoguchi) Japan: Surprisingly enough this is not my favorite version of the famous story/kabuki (I have not seen the most famous version from 1962 with Toshio Mifune though I do own it, but I have seen several versions of this) which would be the Kunio Watanabe 1958 version. The Miracle Fighters (1982: Yuen Woo-ping) Hong Kong: I really like these goofy, but fun films. A Fistful of Talons (1983: Sun Chung) Hong Kong: Strong independent MA film. Tora-San’s Cherished Mother (1969: Yoji Yamada) Japan: Very good second entry into the series. Shaolin vs. Lama (1983: Lee Tso-nan) Hong Kong: Another strong independent MA film. So glad I finally got around to seeing this. High Risk (1995: Wong Jing) Hong Kong RW: My review should say it all and much more. The Flag of Iron (1980: Chang Cheh) Hong Kong RW: So many Chang Cheh films, so little time to rewatch them over and over. Fong Sai Yuk II (1993: Corey Yuen) Hong Kong RW: Always fun sequel though I do not like it as much as the first. Memento Mori (1999: Kin Tae-yong, MinKyu-dong) South Korea: Emotional ghost story which I ended up liking more than I thought. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator One Armed Boxer Posted January 7, 2016 Author Moderator Share Posted January 7, 2016 10 hours ago, Secret Executioner said: Hill of Freedom (South Korea, 2014): a nice little movie from Hong Sang-soo that has many of the director's tropes as well as a narrative as jumbled as a bunch of letters you dropped, cause that's how it's told - from letters that are in disorder because the person who received them tripped and dropped them, losing one in the process. Watched this for the first time last week, classic Hong Sang-soo. Frustratingly though, the Korean DVD featured Korean subs for the whole feature, but the English subs only showed up for the English parts of the movie! Thankfully 90% of it is in English, and my Korean is decent enough to figure out what was being said in the Korean language parts, but I'm not sure what the logic was on English subtitling English parts, and not bothering with the Korean. Really looking forward to 'Right Now, Wrong Then'. 5 hours ago, masterofoneinchpunch said: The Mission (1999: Johnnie To) Hong Kong RW: I've seen this several times. I feel that this is one of the most important Hong Kong films and it is in my top 100 films of all countries. Check out my review in the link (I noticed the formatting has changed on that, I will fix that later.) This is to me what 'Dragons Forever' is to you, hopefully I'll get to see it at some point during 2016. 5 hours ago, masterofoneinchpunch said: Tora-San (Otoko wa tsurai yo) (1969: Yoji Yamada) Japan: I really liked this first entry in one of the longest running series of all-time (not as many as Kwan Tak-hing's Wong Fei-hung though.) Tora-San’s Cherished Mother (1969: Yoji Yamada) Japan: Very good second entry into the series. I watched a few of the Tora-san movies on the cinema while I was living in Japan, they have a certain innocent charm to them which makes them easy to enjoy. Ridiculously for a martial arts movie fan, I've seen more Tora-san movies than I have Zatoichi flicks. There's also a statue of Tora-san in a suburb of Tokyo which I got to visit while I was there, they should really make a statue of Zatoichi as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member masterofoneinchpunch Posted January 7, 2016 Member Share Posted January 7, 2016 Just now, One Armed Boxer said: ... This is to me what 'Dragons Forever' is to you, hopefully I'll get to see it at some point during 2016. I watched a few of the Tora-san movies on the cinema while I was living in Japan, they have a certain innocent charm to them which makes them easy to enjoy. Ridiculously for a martial arts movie fan, I've seen more Tora-san movies than I have Zatoichi flicks. There's also a statue of Tora-san in a suburb of Tokyo which I got to visit while I was there, they should really make a statue of Zatoichi as well. To be fair, there really should be better and easier accessible releases of The Mission (I have even wrote Criterion about it several times.) How many Tora-san films have you seen versus how many Zatoichi? I've seen three Tora-san movies (liked them all) and around 7 or 8 Zatoichi films (depending if you are counting the Takashi Kitano one.) Its funny that Zatoichi is so much more known that Tora-san outside of Japan. Animego has that nice four set release of him (which I have so one more film to go; Amazon has a great price on it so I recommend it to anyone who does not have the first four films.) It's cool that you got to see them in the cinema. Have you seen the first one? While I'm pondering, I should make a nice effort to see more South Korean films this year (the difference between the HK films I have seen and SK is quite large.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator One Armed Boxer Posted January 7, 2016 Author Moderator Share Posted January 7, 2016 1 hour ago, masterofoneinchpunch said: How many Tora-san films have you seen versus how many Zatoichi? I've seen three Tora-san movies (liked them all) and around 7 or 8 Zatoichi films (depending if you are counting the Takashi Kitano one.) Its funny that Zatoichi is so much more known that Tora-san outside of Japan. Animego has that nice four set release of him (which I have so one more film to go; Amazon has a great price on it so I recommend it to anyone who does not have the first four films.) It's cool that you got to see them in the cinema. Have you seen the first one? You know the sad thing is I can't even answer this. I used to live close to a cinema which showed old chambara movies every week for just 100 Yen, and you could stay in the cinema all day. While it also involved sitting amongst the homeless people, bathing in the smell of cheap sake, and occassionally having a cockroach crawl over you, I saw a lot of really good old school Japanese flicks there. The unfortunate thing is, even though playing without subtitles wasn't a problem, because at the time my Japanese was proficient enough to understand, the titles were always written using the Japanese equivalent of their Chinese alphabet, which I never studied enough to be able to read. I'd say I saw about 4 Tora-san movies, but what they were called, and in what sequence they are in relation to the rest of the series, I don't know. As for the Zatoichi question, I've seen the Takeshi Kitano version, and that's it. I've always been an all or nothing kind of guy, so I was always of the mindset that if I see one of the original Zatoichi flicks, I'd have to commit to seeing them all, which in all likelihood is never going to happen. 1 hour ago, masterofoneinchpunch said: While I'm pondering, I should make a nice effort to see more South Korean films this year (the difference between the HK films I have seen and SK is quite large.) South Korea has made the best movies in Asia for the past 15 years, so I'm in full support of your effort! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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