The Foreign Language (Non-Hollywood) Movies Thread: Seen any good ones lately?

[leafinsectman (Dan)]

I just watched Tropa de Elite (or Elite Squad, its a Brazilian movie) and its awesome. I'm looking forward to the sequel which is supposed to be better.

Also fast forwarded through Ip Man (Chinese). Didn't care for the story but great fight scenes.

[Lucien21]

Do you mean foreign language movie because to me all Hollywood movies are foreign.

[BurlIves]

If you haven't seen Un prophète (A Prophet) yet, I highly recommend it. 

[Michael2402]

I really liked Run Lola Run. An oldie but I liked it. Also goodbye Lenin was funny.

[ValorPhoeniX]

Danger: Diabolik

[henri_son]

i recently watched Jet Li's fearless which not only had great action but great story too. another enjoyable Jet Li movie was fist of legend which ties into the fearless storyline. both have some incredible fight scenes and a very interesting and enjoyable storyline.
Has anyone seen dead snow? it's a Norwegian film about Nazi zombies coming back to kill some teens. i saw the trailer but haven't seen it yet. i was wondering if it was any good.


Henri

[Matt H.O.W.L.]

Danger: Diabolik

Karma. One of my faves of that decade. 

Has anyone seen dead snow? it's a Norwegian film about Nazi zombies coming back to kill some teens. i saw the trailer but haven't seen it yet. i was wondering if it was any good.

I watched it. It was okay. Kinda funny. Hyper-violent. I wouldn't watch it again, but it was worth checking out.

[the other mike]

i recently watched Jet Li's fearless which not only had great action but great story too. another enjoyable Jet Li movie was fist of legend which ties into the fearless storyline. both have some incredible fight scenes and a very interesting and enjoyable storyline.
Has anyone seen dead snow? it's a Norwegian film about Nazi zombies coming back to kill some teens. i saw the trailer but haven't seen it yet. i was wondering if it was any good.


Henri

dead snow is ok. story is pretty standard and nothing you haven't heard of before: a group of twentysomethings vacation at a secluded cabin in the mountains. they accidentally disturb some treasure and undead nazis rise up and kill them. its probably a fun movie to watch in a group since its very gory and the action is well done. weird ass sex scene too. yeesh.

if you like swedish (norweigan?) horror, try cold prey. this is like their holloween or friday the 13th.

if you enjoyed fist of legend, then you'll love ip man. like leafinsectman said, the fights are simply awesome. i thought it had a good story too, though.

and i can't say enough good things about tony jaa in ong bak and the protector. the martial arts fights are glorious. the stories are fun but shallow and odd to non-asians, but thats ok since the real star is the fucking ridiculous old school stunts and fight scenes. add chocolate to the list as well, this time its a teen aged autistic girl kicking ass.

if you like straight up crime, try running out of time, about a criminal with a terminal sickness, looking to pull one last heist.

also just saw the international version of john woo's red cliff. this movie is epic. simply epic. one of those sweeping historical war movies with a cast of thousands. the action is tremendous, with a climactic battle reminiscent of saving private ryan. its about a pivotal war in 208AD that lead to the three kingdoms era of china.

netflix has the US version on instant. (it edits down the 2 movies into one 2-and-a-half hour movie)

-mike

[leafinsectman (Dan)]

Do you mean foreign language movie because to me all Hollywood movies are foreign.

Hehe yep, any non-English/non-Hollywood movie. I've changed the thread title.

if you enjoyed fist of legend, then you'll love ip man. like leafinsectman said, the fights are simply awesome. i thought it had a good story too, though.

I didn't think Ip Man's story was bad, just that I didn't feel like going through the drama parts of the movie after watching Tropa De Elite.

Speaking of Donnie Yen, next on my list are Ip Man 2 and Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen. Anyone seen those?

and i can't say enough good things about tony jaa in ong bak and the protector.

Love em. Gotta watch Ong Bak 2 and 3.

also just saw the international version of john woo's red cliff.

I saw the shorter version and I still gotta watch the almost 5 hour version. I saw parts of it and it seems more interesting. The short version is just a lot of fighting whereas it seems like you get to know the people and why they do what they do in the longer version.

[the other mike]

I didn't think Ip Man's story was bad, just that I didn't feel like going through the drama parts of the movie after watching Tropa De Elite.

Speaking of Donnie Yen, next on my list are Ip Man 2 and Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen. Anyone seen those?

i'm a history/ww2 buff so i liked ip man's story. i like bruce lee to so it was nice to see a possible origin of his martial arts and philosophy. and BTW, i just bumped up elite squad up my netflix queue! 

have you seen iron monkey? donnie yen kicks so much ass on that one. one of my most favorite martial arts movies. choreographed by woo ping, so the action is just fantastic.

Love em. Gotta watch Ong Bak 2 and 3.

i'm sorry to say i didn't like ong bak 2 and i fear i might not like ong bak 3. my biggest complaint is that because of the setting of the story, there wasn't an action set piece as impressive as tony jaa's earlier movies. also, the villains weren't memorable, mostly just thugs. the story's not good which sucks because the fighting isn't memorable.

I saw the shorter version and I still gotta watch the almost 5 hour version. I saw parts of it and it seems more interesting. The short version is just a lot of fighting whereas it seems like you get to know the people and why they do what they do in the longer version.

john woo really takes his time. there was a scene where two characters play dueling banjos (i don't know what its called ) for ten whole minutes. lots of long lingering shots of stuff, slow pans... i can see why they cut it down. (to be fair, a lot of character stuff happens too).

-mike

[Lukeh]

Also goodbye Lenin was funny.

I really like this movie Karma.

[leafinsectman (Dan)]

i'm a history/ww2 buff so i liked ip man's story. i like bruce lee to so it was nice to see a possible origin of his martial arts and philosophy.

Just finished watching Ip Man 2 and I gotta say I like the war angle of the first movie a lot more than the over dramatised Chinese martial arts vs Western boxing angle of the second movie so I guess I'm kinda appreciating the first movie more. The fight scenes were more brutal in the first movie too. And some spoilers...

Why the eff did he get hurt by the boxer? Couldn't he have his specific pressure points and disabled the dude within the first 5 seconds? This is a guy who brutally defeated 10 Japanese black belt guys without breaking a sweat and easily defeated a Japanese General. And now he's having trouble with a single boxer? Oh well... you gotta have drama.

And by the way, I'm not trying to diminish boxers. But maybe they should've made this random boxer guy into a more formidable character. Like, have a scene with a bunch of dudes talking about him and say stuff like "he killed a hundred men in the war... with his bare hands!"

You see him teaching and stuff though so at least you get a bit of the philosophy stuff in there. Legend of the Fist should have a lot of the history/war stuff.

and BTW, i just bumped up elite squad up my netflix queue! 

Let me know what you think I might watch the second movie tonight if I get the chance. Can't wait to see more Tropa de Elite!

have you seen iron monkey? donnie yen kicks so much ass on that one. one of my most favorite martial arts movies. choreographed by woo ping, so the action is just fantastic.

Saw it a while ago, gotta watch it again. I think that's the movie that made me a fan of Donnie Yen. I was a big fan of him way back then and I'm glad to see him get even more popular nowadays. I remember him in Shanghai Knights and I thought "holy shit, Jackie Chan is gonna have his ass handed to him". He was severely underused in Blade 2 though. Would've loved to have seen him go one on one with Blade.

i'm sorry to say i didn't like ong bak 2 and i fear i might not like ong bak 3. my biggest complaint is that because of the setting of the story, there wasn't an action set piece as impressive as tony jaa's earlier movies. also, the villains weren't memorable, mostly just thugs. the story's not good which sucks because the fighting isn't memorable.

Yeah it seems like they're doing them as proper movies as opposed to just crazy action. I suppose I could just fast forward to the fight scenes. I love how in the first movie...

The bad guy injects himself with several syringes of steroids or whatever and gets super powerful.

If it doesn't have that level of whackyness then I probably won't like it either.

[leafinsectman (Dan)]

By the way, they've been showing a bunch of Korean movies on tv and I've been getting into them.

I don't think I can properly put into words how I feel about Oldboy without going into spoilers. Its a crazy revenge flick but not exactly the standard revenge flick. Minor ending spoilers...

The ending has to be the biggest flawless victory moment I've ever seen on screen.

I thought The Host was very well made and I liked it quite a bit. I didn't like A Bittersweet Life all that much the first time but liked it more when I saw it recently for the second time. Saw parts of Joint Security Area, The Chaser and Memories of Murder and they seem pretty interesting, I'll have to watch them in full.

Also on my list of Korean movies to watch are I Saw The Devil, The Man from Nowhere, The City of Violence and The Good The Bad The Weird which just seems whacky as heck.

[henri_son]

Speaking of Donnie Yen, next on my list are Ip Man 2 and Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen.

i didn't know legend of the fist was out. that also ties in to the Fearless and Fist of legend storyline taking place after fist of legend.

[leafinsectman (Dan)]

i didn't know legend of the fist was out. that also ties in to the Fearless and Fist of legend storyline taking place after fist of legend.

Haven't seen it (the Chinese shop downstairs where I live has it but I don't know if the subtitles are any good) but I just looked up Wikipedia and it says:

Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen was released theatrically in Hong Kong on 23 September 2010.[7] It was further announced that the film will be released to theaters in the United States in its original, uncut international version by Variance Films on April 22, 2011.

Check out the trailer http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/independent/legendofthefist/

I loved Fist of Legend back in the day but I don't remember much of the story. I might have to check it out.

[Swany]

I'm a big fan of Brotherhood of the Wolf & Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Delicatessen & City of Lost Children.

If you are a fan of Terry Gilliam than Jeunet's work will be right up your alley.

As for Brotherhood of the Wolf The New Yorker put it best:
"A genre-busting treat-part costume drama, part martial-arts horror film-concerning a ferocious, man-eating beast that roams the mountains of eighteenth-century France"

[Michael2402]

I'm a big fan of Brotherhood of the Wolf

Good shout. I love Brotherhood of the wolf

[Lucien21]

Let the Right one in - Brilliant Swedish Vampire flick (better than the US version)

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/sZJUgsZ56vQ&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/sZJUgsZ56vQ&rel=1</a>

Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain - Better known as Amelie or How I fell in love with Audrey Tautou. Best Romantic Comedy ever.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/sECzJY07oK4&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/sECzJY07oK4&rel=1</a>

Mesrine - Based on a true story of a 70's bank robber and murderer.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/y7gIy4H-nU0&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/y7gIy4H-nU0&rel=1</a>

Delicatessen - Brilliantly weird.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/Tg3V8HDK5go&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/Tg3V8HDK5go&rel=1</a>

Y Tu Mama Tambien Coming of age road trip.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/3Qg6n7V3kO4&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/3Qg6n7V3kO4&rel=1</a>

But my Favourite film of recent times has to be a tie between

El Laberinto Del Fauno - Pans Labyrinth is just superb.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/e2PQNYsjjg0&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/e2PQNYsjjg0&rel=1</a>

Perfume: Story of a Murderer - Creepy German movie based on a French novel.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/6NQsCG1NwYg&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/6NQsCG1NwYg&rel=1</a>


But there are a lot more. Brotherhood of the Wolf is great, Cinema Paradiso is a classic, Battle Royale is fun

[Sean M.]

Some damn fine movies listed below and you reminded me that I have to see Le Samourai, so I'll be watching that later today. I can recommend "Tell No One"(Ne le dis à personne)(2006), a fantastic French crime drama based on a Harlan Corben book about a Doctor accused of murdering his wife (no it's not "The Fugitive"). As far as awesome Kung Fu movies go, I watched "Enter the 36 Chambers"(1978) yesterday, with Gordon Liu (he was Pei Mei in Kill Bill), which shows the development of a callow youth into a Shaolin King fu master. I also. like many of you, loved "Ip Man" and would love to see Ip Man 2, even though the unsubtle Chinese nationalism can be a little hard to stomach at times. This said, the kung fu is amazing.

[Jon_Samuelson]

Well, I guess it's English language, but Animal Kingdom is a pretty good crime movie from Australia that I saw this past week.  I'm in the Netherlands, but I suspect it's still in the more arthouse theaters in the U.S.