Weeping Koreans, Psychotic Ninjas, and a lot on early years of Ghengis Khan...
OMG OMG OMG You guys!
You know my weakness for uber-emo, weepy melodramas with a happy ending?
Helllllllo, Beautiful Days!
weismann asked if there are any very angsty romantic ones that end happily and yes! There is! This is it!
Mmmm. lesbiassparrow, this should so be your thing! It has plucky orphan heroine! Who is kind to children and small animals! And who ends up pursued by two very different but very rich brothers! Who hate each other! And there is an EVIL family secret! And manly weeping! (Lots of said manly weeping, in fact). And repressed yearning! And stares of UST! And breaking up with the OTP to protect said OTP! And terminal illness of heroine that comes out of nowhere and culminates in surgery! But it all ends happily.
Yes. I couldn't believe it either.
This MV (which I posted before) didn't make it any easier to believe, but apparently it is so:
Oh YES.
Also, how can people not find Asian entertainment the end-all and be-all when it has movies like Ninja Wars, summarized here as "Hiroyuki Sanada is Jotaro, master ninja, on a quest to revenge his ninja girlfriend, whose head was put onto another woman's body by a group of evil demon monks." Can it get any better?
Last but not least:
Apparently the short-list for nominations for Best Foreign Picture Oscar has come out, but this isn't about that.
I found a website with reviews for all submitted movies here and some of them really caught my attention and I decided to post about some of them here, largely from Asian countries, to either recommend them, get opinions on them, or just because they sounded neat.
THE KNOT (China): A "historical epic love story ranging from the late 1940's in Taiwan to the present day in New York and Tibet. It's about a young couple caught up in the passions of the Communist takeover: she an artist, daughter of a bourgeois Taiwanese dentist, he a red partisan who leaves Taiwan to join the Communists, becomes a medic for the Red side in the Korean War, and disappears."
KING OF FIRE (original name: King Naresuan II or Naresuan) (Thailand): (from imdb) The film concerns the life of King Naresuan, who liberated the Siamese from the control of Burma. Born in 1555, he was taken to Burma as a child hostage; there he became acquainted with sword fighting and became a threat to the Burmese empire. I really really really want to see this one! Also, does anyone have any good Thai movies to recommend?
KATYN (Poland): Andrzej Wajda's movie of the Doviet WWII atrocity, when Stalin had Polish officers massacred and tried to blame the Nazis.
BEAUFORT (Israel): (from imdb): "BEAUFORT tells the story of Liraz Liberti, the 22 year-old outpost commander, and his troops in the months before Israel pulled out of Lebanon. This is not a story of war, but of retreat. This is a story with no enemy, only an amorphous entity that drops bombs from the skies while terrified young soldiers must find a way to carry out their mission until their very last minutes on that mountaintop. As Liraz lays the explosives which would destroy that very same structure that his friends had died defending, he witnesses the collapse of all he's been taught as an officer, and his soldier's mental and physical disintegration." This one made it into the initial finalists.
IN THE HELIOPOLIS FLAT (Egypt): a romcom and I love those, plus I've only seen one (very fun) Egyptian movie before, in my life.
MONGOL (Kazakhstan): epic-epic-epic early life of Ghengis Khan. Weeeee, look at people in cool outfits fight other people in cool outfits, with swords!
You know my weakness for uber-emo, weepy melodramas with a happy ending?
Helllllllo, Beautiful Days!
weismann asked if there are any very angsty romantic ones that end happily and yes! There is! This is it!
Mmmm. lesbiassparrow, this should so be your thing! It has plucky orphan heroine! Who is kind to children and small animals! And who ends up pursued by two very different but very rich brothers! Who hate each other! And there is an EVIL family secret! And manly weeping! (Lots of said manly weeping, in fact). And repressed yearning! And stares of UST! And breaking up with the OTP to protect said OTP! And terminal illness of heroine that comes out of nowhere and culminates in surgery! But it all ends happily.
Yes. I couldn't believe it either.
This MV (which I posted before) didn't make it any easier to believe, but apparently it is so:
Click to viewOh YES.
Also, how can people not find Asian entertainment the end-all and be-all when it has movies like Ninja Wars, summarized here as "Hiroyuki Sanada is Jotaro, master ninja, on a quest to revenge his ninja girlfriend, whose head was put onto another woman's body by a group of evil demon monks." Can it get any better?
Last but not least:
Apparently the short-list for nominations for Best Foreign Picture Oscar has come out, but this isn't about that.
I found a website with reviews for all submitted movies here and some of them really caught my attention and I decided to post about some of them here, largely from Asian countries, to either recommend them, get opinions on them, or just because they sounded neat.
THE KNOT (China): A "historical epic love story ranging from the late 1940's in Taiwan to the present day in New York and Tibet. It's about a young couple caught up in the passions of the Communist takeover: she an artist, daughter of a bourgeois Taiwanese dentist, he a red partisan who leaves Taiwan to join the Communists, becomes a medic for the Red side in the Korean War, and disappears."
KING OF FIRE (original name: King Naresuan II or Naresuan) (Thailand): (from imdb) The film concerns the life of King Naresuan, who liberated the Siamese from the control of Burma. Born in 1555, he was taken to Burma as a child hostage; there he became acquainted with sword fighting and became a threat to the Burmese empire. I really really really want to see this one! Also, does anyone have any good Thai movies to recommend?
KATYN (Poland): Andrzej Wajda's movie of the Doviet WWII atrocity, when Stalin had Polish officers massacred and tried to blame the Nazis.
BEAUFORT (Israel): (from imdb): "BEAUFORT tells the story of Liraz Liberti, the 22 year-old outpost commander, and his troops in the months before Israel pulled out of Lebanon. This is not a story of war, but of retreat. This is a story with no enemy, only an amorphous entity that drops bombs from the skies while terrified young soldiers must find a way to carry out their mission until their very last minutes on that mountaintop. As Liraz lays the explosives which would destroy that very same structure that his friends had died defending, he witnesses the collapse of all he's been taught as an officer, and his soldier's mental and physical disintegration." This one made it into the initial finalists.
IN THE HELIOPOLIS FLAT (Egypt): a romcom and I love those, plus I've only seen one (very fun) Egyptian movie before, in my life.
MONGOL (Kazakhstan): epic-epic-epic early life of Ghengis Khan. Weeeee, look at people in cool outfits fight other people in cool outfits, with swords!