Good foreign films!

Although the English speaking world occasionaly makes great films,there are some excellent foreign films out there(please add some if you know any).
Heres some to start.
Amelie (French)
Cinema paradiso (Italian)
Jean De Florette/Manon de sources (French)
City of God (Brazillian)
La haine (French)
District 13 (French)
Hard boiled (Hong Kong)
Funny games (German)
Its a beautiful life (Italian)
The motorcycle diaries (S American)
Amores perros (S American)
Ong bak/Warrior king (Thai)
The curse of the golden flower/Hero (Chinese)
Shogun assasin (Chinese)
Crouching tiger hidden dragon (Chinese)
Zatoichi (Japanese)
Pan's labyrinth (Spanish)
Whale rider (New Zealand)
Spirited away (Japanese)
Battle royal (Japanese)
Das boot (German)
Appocalypto-(its got subtitles-does that count?)
.........

I'll add to that list:

Raise the Red Lantern
Ju Dou
Eat Drink Man Woman
Uzumaki
Ringu (all)
Earth
Fire
Water
Yesterday
Man Bites Dog
Tatie Danielle
Bliss
Run Lola Run

I have errands to run or I'd add more to the list.

MM,Cheers-haven't seen many of them (but will dig them out).
'Man bites dog'-very good film,if you liked that one have you seen a German film called 'Funny games'? It's certainly original(but rather disturbing).

Some cool movies there guys - Being in Hong Kong I see quite a few chinese movies so here are a few good ones - cos most are just canto-pop-garbage.

One Night in Mong Kok. (Hong Kong)
Infernal Affairs (the original "The Departed")
If you were me (Korean girly film)
The Night Watch (Russian)
The one about the thai transgender volleyball players can't remember the name.

Can't remember, all the chinese vcd's get lent to one of a billion aunties and I never see them again!!

I'll ask the trouble and strife.

Hana-bi (Japanese)
Dr Mabuse (German)
Y Tu Mama Tambien (Mexican)
Ichi the Killer (Japanese)
Oldboy (Korean)
Save the green planet (Korean)
Gozu (Japanese)
Casshern (Japanese)
The Taxi trigology (French)
Tstoi (African)
Rois et Reine (French)
La Chevre (French)

That's the few i could remember of the top of my head all of the above that everyone else has already written has most of the great foreign movies already listed.

Old Boy! What a bizarre flick! The giant ant or whatever in the subway was so freaky.

This would be a great thread to synopsize movies we have just seen.

I watched Lilya 4-Ever last night.

What a heartwrenching film! It was Russian or Swedish, both languages and locales were represented.

Lilya, 16, is abandoned by her mother in Estonia, because her mom is off to the US with her boyfriend. Lilya's life becomes harder and harder and she meets someone she thinks will save her. He gets her to Sweden where her life takes a turn for the even worse.

Dark and depressing, yes. As a mother, I was appalled. I knew it was just a movie but I wanted to find that girl's mother and slap her into the middle of next week. I would never abandon a child to that fate. It was horrible.

The end was very touching. If not a happy ending, it didn't end on a totally bleak note.

Well worth the watch if you like dramas about teens in trouble.

I've just bought district 13, not watched it yet.
I think it's french.
It's about Parkour or freerunning, if you don't know what that is google parkour, you will be impressed.

I'll come back tomorrow with a better review of the film...

Chuckles District 13 is a pretty good one -the free running scenes are bonkers!

MM,the Russian film 'Come and see' has got to be up there as one of the most genuinely powerful foreign movies ever made.
Its been described as the best war film ever made and deals with the unimaginable brutal and inhuman way the Nazi regime cleansed over 600 villages in the Ukrain in WW2.
It all filmed through the eyes of a 12 year old boy and,although the first part of the film is a bit strange,its an amazing piece of filmaking.
During filming,the director used live ammunition and the child actor nearly had a nervous breakdown (hypnothepary had to be used).
All in all, an excellent film -but defintiely not for the faint hearted!
Heres the trailer (although it does contain some disturbing images)
www.youtube.com...
Cheers Karl
PS Like the other thread-I'm sure I can find a few turkeys to post there

[edit on 01/24/07 by karl 12]

Yeah I liked it, I heard about it ages ago and I knew about freerunnin ages before that, I so wish I could free run.

The film does have some awsome scenes yes, but it slows down alot in the middle of the film, I was still interested but I wanted things to pick up pace again...

I give a 7/10

I watched Pan's Labyrinth yesterday and I'm still mulling it over. I love a film that leaves you feeling sort of lost at the end, wondering exactly what happened. I wasn't expecting it to be what it was, but it was brilliant! I rated it five stars on Netflix.

The way they left you wondering at the ending, did she die, or did she go home? Both? The animations were wonderful, the story was simple and as real as a fairy story could be.

I highly recommend this one, rent it now.

Right now.

You heard me.

The Pathfinder (Veiviseren), a Norwegian film from 1987. I haven't seen the American version from 2007 yet, but I have bad experience with American remakes of foreign films. The Norwegian film is very good. It was even nominated for an Oscar.

I know someone with "inside information" regarding the shooting of the film. She told me something regarding a scene where a man is fighting against a bear. The scene is awesome and the bear appear very angry in the film. But in real life, the bear was very kind. Too kind. The film makers had to struggle a lot to make the bear more angry, in order to make the scene look good...


Here is a picture from the bear scene.

[edit on 2007/6/21 by Hellmutt]

You and me both. I don't know how we can take a good film and remake it so badly sometimes. It's embarrassing.

I'll have to put the original on my Netflix queue.

The Motorcycle Diaries-About Che Guevara and his travels around South America before he became a revolutinary)
Das Experiment- A German film inspired by the events in America where an experiment testing in a mock prison where you were either a prisoner or a prison guard.
Taxi- Very cool funny French film about a taxi driver( In no way similar to the renonwed U.S taxi driver or Taxi remake)
Maria Full Of Garce- Bolivian film about drug running in to the U.S.
The Vanishing- Creppy French film about a man who's wife is kidnapped.

Curse of the Golden Flower

Wow! I watched this last night, and talk about cinematographic eye candy!

This film was absolutely amazing, it had something for everyone. Think Cecil B. DeMille epic blockbuster, with some Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon camera tricks, a little Matrix-style hangtime, all wrapped up in the most lavish costumes and scenery I've seen in a film in years.

It was stunning! Chow Yun Fat and Gong Li held the starring roles, my two favorite Chinese actors. Director Zhang Yimou pulls out all the stops. I was so wrapped up in the richness of the sets and the costuming that I nearly lost track of the story line.

The climax was, I must admit, a bit of overkill, but it wasn't meant to be a historical movie, it was more along the lines of legend. The surprises kept coming, the plot twisted and turned, and my jaw kept dropping from the sheer scale of the production.

This movie had something for everyone: a detailed portrayal of the fate of women and family in an Imperial court (for the girls -- the Chinese chick flick aspect), and lots of blood and battle (for the guys). And the end of the movie, while extremely tragic in the best Yimou tradition, had just enough of a cliffhanger at the end to leave me wondering.

Rent this one if you're a fan of Chinese cinema, it is not to be missed.

{edit because the wrong URL got in there}


[edit on 1-7-2007 by MajorMalfunction]

That's a great movie.


And to add to the list

Haute tension (French Horror)

The Ox(Sweden):

movies.yahoo.com...

Or a Canadian flick, Bon Cop Bad Cop:

www.imdb.com...

Funny film. Makes fun of the English/French divide in Canada. Some nudity, lots of violence and a merdeload of language. Tarbanach.

Pan's labyrinth (Spanish)

Thumbs way, way up on this one...a true gem that shouldn't be missed just because of subtitles.... I was so glad to see it do well at the Oscars...even though most had never even heard of it...

Central Station
Brazil, 1998

This is a very touching yet gritty film, concerning a young boy who's mother is killed. He is befriended (if that's what you call it) by a bitter ex-school teacher who writes letters (but doesn't mail them) for illiterate denizens of Rio.

After a terrible misadventure that eats at the teacher's mind, she ends up taking the boy to try to find his father at a village hundreds of miles away. In doing so, she appears to redeem herself, and her own lost and damaged childhood.

I found this to be an excellent film and gave it four stars at Netflix.

A Zed and Two Noughts.

Peter Greenaway is a genius. Some of the time lapse photography in the movie is used brilliantly to illustrate moral and ethical points. One of my all time favorite foreign films.