Why is "Asian" cinema always treated like it's some how a higher standard?

[EvilNed]

Seriously. I just watched House of the Flying Daggers. You seen it? What was so special about it? Nothing! It had a thin plot, cliché riddled "twists" and I had more trouble predicting Ingmar Bergmans death than I did figuring out what would happen to which character within 5 minutes of watching the film.

It was like a really bad Hollywood film (you know the kind, usually directed by Roland Emmerich and riddled with Hollywood-clichés) but with chinese clichés replacing the american ones. But why are we supposed to treat this garbage like GOLD?! Because it's from China, and chinese films are so cool? Well, I don't give a damn if it's from China or not, a sucky film is a sucky film.

A similar pattern can be found with the american film "Memoirs of a Geisha". Have you ever, EVER read a western review of that film that does NOT mention how dreadfull it is that the three main (japanese) characters are played by chinese actors? However, have you EVER EVER read a review about how dreadful it is that Maximus and Commodus weren't played by italians, or why they didn't cast actual russians in the part of the sarmatians in King Arthur?

When I watch a film like The 13th Warrior (which is a masterpiece, and I'll have words with anyone who says otherwise) I don't give a **** if the actors are swedish or danish (which they're not, they're mostly english) as long as they pull off a convincing performance and look the part. And I have a hard time imagening anyone could ever look at the chinese actors in Memoirs of a Geisha, stop dead in their track and correctly predict which southeastern asian country their from, just like you can't see if the guys playing the vikings in 13th Warrior are danish, german or english.

Stop treating asian cinema like it's gold! It's not! It's just like Hollywood for the most part, mainstream cess-pools, but from another part of the world. Saying that House of Flying Daggers is a work of art is like saying King Arthur is a work of art, and it ain't.

[Danny]

i dunno, as bollox adn overrated as daggers was youve got the likes of hero, battle royale, r-point, chungking express ect.

i mean in chungking express the second story taht takes up 80% of the film is a girl getting so in lvoe with a cop she starts to go in his house when hes out adn slowly changes all the stuff inside to her tastes, he finds out, falls for her, then she pisses off to become a stewardess.
you jsut dont get that kind of plot in a hollywood film. well a serious one anyway, adn thats part of the allure of asian cinema, compared to the **** were coming out with like saw, hostel or any other piece of crap exploitation for the sake of the moolah asian cinema is a breath of fresh air.



Though by your commie standards im wap-as-fook so what do i know.


wheres my pocky ?:lol:

[EvilNed]

you jsut dont get that kind of plot in a hollywood film. well a serious one anyway, adn thats part of the allure of asian cinema, compared to the **** were coming out with like saw, hostel or any other piece of crap exploitation for the sake of the moolah asian cinema is a breath of fresh air.

I disagree. First off, you get that kind of wacky plots in Hollywood films. Donnie Darko, Butterfly Effect, Fight Club etc. etc. (And they're not independent films, as very few films are in the true sense in Hollywood).

And like in Hollywood, these kind of films aren't dime-a-dozen in China or Japan. It's just that there's no need to import the dime-a-dozen crap that they do, so you only get to see the GOOD films that they import.

I mean, take this example: How many Swedish films do you know about? Probably Ingmar Bergman and his auteurfilms, right? But in Sweden, as in EVERY country, the mainstream cop/thriller/comedy films are the ones that get massproduced. But you don't get to see those films unless you live in that country. You only get to see the Ingmar Bergman films, leaving a feeling that "Wow, Swedish cinema is so different", when it infact is not.

Asian cinema? Just the same. The mass-produce brown logs just like everyone else, but you only get to see the films that are worth importing. Makes it seem like Asian cinema is so different, when it infact is not.

[Danny]

I disagree. First off, you get that kind of wacky plots in Hollywood films. Donnie Darko, Butterfly Effect, Fight Club etc. etc. (And they're not independent films, as very few films are in the true sense in Hollywood).

And like in Hollywood, these kind of films aren't dime-a-dozen in China or Japan. It's just that there's no need to import the dime-a-dozen crap that they do, so you only get to see the GOOD films that they import.

I mean, take this example: How many Swedish films do you know about? Probably Ingmar Bergman and his auteurfilms, right? But in Sweden, as in EVERY country, the mainstream cop/thriller/comedy films are the ones that get massproduced. But you don't get to see those films unless you live in that country. You only get to see the Ingmar Bergman films, leaving a feeling that "Wow, Swedish cinema is so different", when it infact is not.

Asian cinema? Just the same. The mass-produce brown logs just like everyone else, but you only get to see the films that are worth importing. Makes it seem like Asian cinema is so different, when it infact is not.


err.

...was 'festen' a swedish film?:rockbrow:

[EvilNed]

Danish/Swedish co-production. But most people (In sweden) regard it as Danish, since it's a Dogma film and directed/starring Danes.

[_liam_]

its dogme not dogma ;)

i've always wanted to attempt to make a film within those parameters, but tbh i cant think of anything interesting to do, it being such a strict set of guidelines...

people wank on about anime and asian cinema because they are pretentious and want to appear cultured & sophisticated.

that said the codes and conventions of the asian horror scene in the late 90s had a darker & more sinister edge than the rest of the world's

[EvilNed]

We call it Dogma in Sweden, tho. But the danish name for it is Dogme, true.

The Dogma rules are also bull****. I was at lecture by none other than Lloyd Kaufman once and he totally ridiculed Dogma 95. Why is everybody so interested in Dogma, he said, Troma has made films on ****ty conditions for over 30 years! :D

[Maitreya]

Hellsing has a point, Battle Royale is way good.

It's one of those movies that really makes you think. I've been meaning to check out R-Point too, although I never really get over to movie stores. What places rent it out?

[Terran]

Seriously. I just watched House of the Flying Daggers. You seen it? What was so special about it? Nothing!


House of Flying Daggers Sucked....



A similar pattern can be found with the american film "Memoirs of a Geisha". Have you ever, EVER read a western review of that film that does NOT mention how dreadfull it is that the three main (japanese) characters are played by chinese actors?

Memoirs of a Geisha sucked....


However, have you EVER EVER read a review about how dreadful it is that Maximus and Commodus weren't played by italians, or why they didn't cast actual russians in the part of the sarmatians in King Arthur?

King Arthur sucked.....


When I watch a film like The 13th Warrior (which is a masterpiece, and I'll have words with anyone who says otherwise) I don't give a **** if the actors are swedish or danish (which they're not, they're mostly english) as long as they pull off a convincing performance and look the part.
13th Warrior sucked!
....
On a side note though I liked Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon quite a bit....

[Danny]

Hellsing has a point, Battle Royale is way good.

It's one of those movies that really makes you think. I've been meaning to check out R-Point too, although I never really get over to movie stores. What places rent it out?

r point is great, its a ghost story set in an abandoned hotel resort in vietnam, were a group of soldiers dissappeared and another teasm sent in.
one of the creepiest moments is when they meet some u.s g.i's near the start who dissappaer then later on they find there long dead bodies in a downed u.s chopper, its sold as "blair witch meets full metal jacket" adn i think thats spot on to describe it, check out ebay or amazon its a great horror film.:cool:

[Tricky]

There are some good asian films anyone seen "brotherhood" about the korean war?but most are just martial arts films full of extremely choreographed fights (as opposed to natural looking brawls) involving loads of twitchy short arsed blokes whacking big sticks together in a temple of some kind :lol:

[Danny]

actually ive been meaning to catch brotherhood it looks really impressive ,scale wise its on the same level of saving private ryan form what ive seen.
Another good one is casshern, most ".....?" ending ever.

[Yojimbo]

R-Point sounds decent. Perhaps one of the exceptions to a lot of now quickly becoming formulaic asian horror films.

I am a Japanese-American, and have got to say that I have noticed a lot of White-Americans automatically treat any film from Asia as being automatically extremely brilliant and profoundly more meaningful than the same crap being churned out of hollywood.

Somehow if the Japanese produced Norbit, for example, it would be treated as something unique and special.

Not to say that there isn't good cinema coming out of Japan, or Asia for that matter. (Memoirs of a Geisha, in my mind, doesn't count since it was filmed in Los Angeles and produced by an American company, and in a large way is pretty much laughed at by Japanese Nationals. And House of Daggers, I agree, was lame. And if I see another Chinese film where martial arts folks are able to fly like peter pan, I might have to go out and get cosmetic surgery to take the slant out of my eyes)

Similarly, I take issue with the tendency of many non-asians to treat anything from Asia as being especially insightful or precious or more meaningful simply because it came from Asia. Chinese Herbal Medicine, for example, is not automatically superior to American Pharmaceuticals. Accupuncture is NOT NECESSARILY more effective than Western Medicine. Sashimi is not superior to Ceviche. Asian girls are not more mysterious than Swedish girls.

To assert that something is better simply because it originates in Asia, in my view, is a form of racism and prejuduce.

So I agree with Mr EvilNed and paraphrase him now: Stop treating Asian things as being superior to those of Western Culture.

[Danny]

on that final note i agree, there was a chinese guy in my film class and we had to read and act out these scripts we'd written and i wrote one for the group we were in that was retarded just to be retarded, and he thought it would be funny if he just sat faced in a corner flipping a coin, it was so random i said ,sure why the hell not, so we did the bit, it got a laugh but the teacher whent on about how he had "zen like patience" and he was like "dude i was flipping a coin, standing in a corner, were does "zen" come into it.

The answer, only becuase hes asian:rolleyes:

though the only thing close to happieness of the katakuris that came out over here was brain dead so....

[DjfunkmasterG]

Other than early John Woo films I don't see what is so special about Asian cinema.

[EvilNed]

Asian cinema has hits and misses just like everything else. But every filmindustry on the planet specializes on one single thing:

Mainstream crap.

[Yojimbo]

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon = Asian Peter Pan

[DjfunkmasterG]

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon = Asian Peter Pan


HA HA HA, I never thought of that! Good call. :lol:

[Danny]

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon = Asian Peter Pan

YES! bang on, i cant stadn how overrated that was at the time, just like human traffic ,you look back on it now adn think "what the hell was the moviegoers thinking?":barf:

[Khardis]

Seriously. I just watched House of the Flying Daggers. You seen it? What was so special about it? Nothing! It had a thin plot, cliché riddled "twists" and I had more trouble predicting Ingmar Bergmans death than I did figuring out what would happen to which character within 5 minutes of watching the film.

It was like a really bad Hollywood film (you know the kind, usually directed by Roland Emmerich and riddled with Hollywood-clichés) but with chinese clichés replacing the american ones. But why are we supposed to treat this garbage like GOLD?! Because it's from China, and chinese films are so cool? Well, I don't give a damn if it's from China or not, a sucky film is a sucky film.

A similar pattern can be found with the american film "Memoirs of a Geisha". Have you ever, EVER read a western review of that film that does NOT mention how dreadfull it is that the three main (japanese) characters are played by chinese actors? However, have you EVER EVER read a review about how dreadful it is that Maximus and Commodus weren't played by italians, or why they didn't cast actual russians in the part of the sarmatians in King Arthur?

When I watch a film like The 13th Warrior (which is a masterpiece, and I'll have words with anyone who says otherwise) I don't give a **** if the actors are swedish or danish (which they're not, they're mostly english) as long as they pull off a convincing performance and look the part. And I have a hard time imagening anyone could ever look at the chinese actors in Memoirs of a Geisha, stop dead in their track and correctly predict which southeastern asian country their from, just like you can't see if the guys playing the vikings in 13th Warrior are danish, german or english.

Stop treating asian cinema like it's gold! It's not! It's just like Hollywood for the most part, mainstream cess-pools, but from another part of the world. Saying that House of Flying Daggers is a work of art is like saying King Arthur is a work of art, and it ain't.

Agreed, i dated a Chinese girl for 6 damned years and she would occasionally force me to sit through one of these things. THEY ARE CRAP! with fractured hokey story lines thats don't make sense, even with a great translation!

I think the answer to your query though lies here:

http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=anime_nerd

[EvilNed]

Agreed, i dated a Chinese girl for 6 damned years and she would occasionally force me to sit through one of these things. THEY ARE CRAP! with fractured hokey story lines thats don't make sense, even with a great translation!

I think the answer to your query though lies here:

http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=anime_nerd

For once we're on the exact same page. I hate those people.

As for Croucing Tiger, Hidden Dragon I thought that film was overrated but adequate entertaining. Hero was very good, however. Flying Daggers was just crap and predicteable.

[acealive1]

Seriously. I just watched House of the Flying Daggers. You seen it? What was so special about it? Nothing! It had a thin plot, cliché riddled "twists" and I had more trouble predicting Ingmar Bergmans death than I did figuring out what would happen to which character within 5 minutes of watching the film.

It was like a really bad Hollywood film (you know the kind, usually directed by Roland Emmerich and riddled with Hollywood-clichés) but with chinese clichés replacing the american ones. But why are we supposed to treat this garbage like GOLD?! Because it's from China, and chinese films are so cool? Well, I don't give a damn if it's from China or not, a sucky film is a sucky film.

A similar pattern can be found with the american film "Memoirs of a Geisha". Have you ever, EVER read a western review of that film that does NOT mention how dreadfull it is that the three main (japanese) characters are played by chinese actors? However, have you EVER EVER read a review about how dreadful it is that Maximus and Commodus weren't played by italians, or why they didn't cast actual russians in the part of the sarmatians in King Arthur?

When I watch a film like The 13th Warrior (which is a masterpiece, and I'll have words with anyone who says otherwise) I don't give a **** if the actors are swedish or danish (which they're not, they're mostly english) as long as they pull off a convincing performance and look the part. And I have a hard time imagening anyone could ever look at the chinese actors in Memoirs of a Geisha, stop dead in their track and correctly predict which southeastern asian country their from, just like you can't see if the guys playing the vikings in 13th Warrior are danish, german or english.

Stop treating asian cinema like it's gold! It's not! It's just like Hollywood for the most part, mainstream cess-pools, but from another part of the world. Saying that House of Flying Daggers is a work of art is like saying King Arthur is a work of art, and it ain't.

i look at it this way,if those idiots cant bother to dub it in the worlds most easy to learn language and we always dub our films in their language,then they can can go jump in a lake. i refuse to pay $10 to go read subtitles,its like like buying a cd but only its the edited version

[Danny]

i gotta disagree with you there i watch a lot of asian cinema and anime and i just cant watch dubs if i have the choice to watch a subbed version instead.

[EvilNed]

Yeah, dubs are a big no-no to me too. Any film automaticly gives a Z-grade stamp by me if it's dubbed. It always sounds dumb in my ears. Over here we don't dub anything except kiddie movies tho, so that's good. I think the nordic countries + Holland are the only countries in the world that do so.

[Danny]

same here man, try watching another language dub of somethign like the lrod of the rings adn no matter how proffesional it is, it just doesnt fit the vibe. Thats why the reis games, which are based on american horror adn action films are done in english but with japanese subs in japan, somethings are just meant to be heard the way they wer eintended.

[_liam_]

Other than early John Woo films I don't see what is so special about Asian cinema.

while i dont worship asian cinema anymore than any other part of the world's, there's stuff like

city on fire
ringu
battle royale
audition
ichi the killer
ghost in the shell

which do pwn in ways most western movies do not

[EvilNed]

which do pwn in ways most western movies do not

Then again there are films like Donnie Darko, Butterfly Effect, Heat, Gladiator, Man eats Dog that pwn in ways most eastern films do not.

Besides, what is up with Ghost in the Shell? I thought that film sucked big-time. Battle Royale is alright tho, but it's definetly not the masterpiece people make it out to be. I loved it the first time around, but (like Fight Club) I didn't enjoy it the second time around.

[CornishCorpse]

Then again there are films like Donnie Darko, Butterfly Effect, Heat, Gladiator, Man eats Dog that pwn in ways most eastern films do not.

Besides, what is up with Ghost in the Shell? I thought that film sucked big-time. Battle Royale is alright tho, but it's definetly not the masterpiece people make it out to be. I loved it the first time around, but (like Fight Club) I didn't enjoy it the second time around


Ive never seen Ghost in the Shell and alot of asian hype usually falls short : Cough : Hellsing : Cough : but battle royale was alright? Bah. Bah to you, the movie is a work of art at least in my eyes but thats only because Im a fan of the book. If anyone is looking to pick up an intresting book, a new depth.

Good point about the Butterfly Effect,Gladiator and more but I think the asian hype is just because alot of things are allowed in film and I can find you a large amount of bizarre asian films and surely there are bizarre films from other countries.

But its just the asian market has alot of odd perspectives that make it onto film. If anyone here has`nt seen old boy youre missing out.

Jus my two cents.

[EvilNed]

Again, nothign special about Old Boy. I was actually pretty bored when watching it. Good plot, but not very good.

[Danny]

actually cornish i saw ghost on sci-fi in the 90's when i was little, didnt enjoy too much, got it free with a HIM music dvd i got for a quid adn have yet to actually watch it, just like akira, its a great piece of animation, but if youve seen it once you dont really need to see it again.

[EvilNed]

Ghost in the Shell I've watched once, and I was bored out of my mind. Akira, however, I can watch many, many times.

[CornishCorpse]

Gah! I loved Old boy! I thought everything about it was intresting but its personal tastes I suppose, I just couldnt see the plot coming out of the west but I may be biased.

Ghost in the shell has alot of sequels? anyone ever check them out? Ive always been tempted since I like manga but bleh for £20? nah, Ill stick to the random film bin.

[MissJacksonCA]

Amen man... a m e n

[mista_mo]

while on the topic of anime:


it f*cken sucks.

[Danny]

^*shakes head in distain*:rolleyes:

here's someone whos never seen perfect blue then.

[EvilNed]

I've seen Perfect Blue, and it sucks ass. It's like any ordinary thriller from a low budget american company, except that it's animated. A thriller can be good if it's original. Perfect Blue wasn't.

[CornishCorpse]

Im a big fan of anime but I thought perfect blue sucked..but hey Studio Chibi for the stoner nights.