Asian Horror Films

Stacy

I am on the fence about this one. It was a bad movie and there is no doubt about that, but is it a bad movie that works? Teenage females begin mysteriously dieing around the globe and come back to life as zombies as military groups wander the streets killing them. The camera work, acting and dialog were similar to that of a soap opera, where as the gore quality was actually quite good.

Several scenes seemed to be ripped directly out of Day of the Dead and after a while the tongue-flicking of the zombies begain to get on my nerve. I'll have to watch it again to see if it was good at being bad, but unless you are into the non-intentional humor of Ed Wood films you might just want to pass this one by.

Originally posted by Jonna
Vampire Effect

I am not quite sure if this was suppose to be horror or comedy. Think Blade meets a Jackie Chan film (which is not much of a stretch because he is in it). Some decent action sequences with a campy atmosphere at times. Good for a laugh as long as you don't take it too seriously.

In Hong Kong this movie is called Twins Effect. It was O.K

What ever you do dont see a Japanese movie called St Johns Wort its very boring made me sleep.

Originally posted by drunk
What ever you do dont see a Japanese movie called St Johns Wort its very boring made me sleep.

Where were you to inform me before I rented that yawn fest?:bnghd:

Originally posted by SE7EN
just waiting on battle royale 2

yah... watched battle royal at school... it scared the teachers :shk:

Moon Child

As per IMDd:

In the year 2014, Japan has collapsed economically and thus its people emigrated in large numbers and settled in other parts of the world. In a corner in Asia, there is a little street called Mallepa, a big melting pot where Asians such as Hongkongers, Taiwanese and Japanese live together. It was a place where people fought for order, food and freedom. It was there where Shou (Gackt), raised as an orphan and Kei (Hyde), who could live forever, met and became the best of friends. However, they were unable to escape from the fight for power involving gangs of different ethnicity on the street of Malepa...

I rented this one because of two reasons: gunplay and vampires. The surprising thing is that I ended up liking it for completely different reasons. The first 15 minutes I was trembling with the fear that I would spend the next hour and a half watching pretty Asian boys emulate Nick Rhode's (Duran Duran) style hair cuts, but luckily that fear was unwarrented. I am hesitant to refer to it as a horror film even with the vampire.

The reason I liked this film is because they displayed the vampire as having very real emotions and not just as a mindless killer or an overtly homosexual, heterosexual man (God, I hate Ann Rice). A psudo horror film that actually invokes an emotional connection to the characters? Who would have thought it!

Not a great film but, for what it is going for, it hits its goal head on.

Originally posted by Jonna

Originally posted by drunk
What ever you do dont see a Japanese movie called St Johns Wort its very boring made me sleep.

Where were you to inform me before I rented that yawn fest?:bnghd:

Sorry that i was too late to warn you! bloody boring wasnt it?

Saw a Thailand movie called Shutter about a photographer who cathes an image of a ghost while shooting pics for a graduation ceremony the ghost wont leave him alone! scary and chilling stuff i reckon

after going on a little *cough* downloading *cough* spree i ended up with the following:

Bunshinsaba
Ju-on
Ju-on 2
Ju-on: The Grudge
Ju-on: The Grudge 2
Ringu
Ring Virus
Uzumaki

it's a nice mix of japanese and korean horror, but one thing you'll notice from the majority of them is the typical scary girl with long black hair covering her face... i'll never look at an asian girl in the same way

Wow! Where do I go with this one? Think of the dark cartoonish world of Tim Burton mixed with the eeriness of the original Evil Dead film and the camera & editing work of some avantgard schizophranic who is obsessed with H.P. Lovecraft. While it may not be in-tune with the palett of most conditioned by american normalcy, it is definatly worth the viewing.

Nothing can beat The legend of the Seven Golden Vampires.
Ok - to be honest the only good thing about this film is Peter Cushing and he probably only did it because he was bored.

Biozombie

I have been debating purchasing this one for years and with my Amazon card rebate coupons I got it for free. I would advise getting one as I've gotten $200+ in free stuff thus far. Anyways....

This movie is divided into two parts. The first half of the film is a goof comedy and the second is a zombie fest. I can sum it up perfectly in 8 words: Bill & Ted vs. Dawn of the Dead. While the zombie make-up was not exactly above par, the shear stupidity of the two main characters saved the film. One of them even seemed to have the english voice over of keanu.

As with most Asian cinematography, there were some rather cool screen shots, camera angles and hooks to keep things interesting. And of course some video game reference gags that, for once, actually came off humorous instead of cheesy.

Over all, I would have to say definatly a rental, but unless you enjoy this type of humor I would not advise buying.

Bio-Zombie was hilarious so was Bio-cops.

Cure

This is definetly one that I have to rewatch as it was a bit confusing. Think a supernatural version of the movie Seven. Has anyone else seen this one?

I really wanted to like this one, but it just didn't do anything for me. Based on a comic and directed by the person who did Versus, Alive is about a deathrow covict that is allowed to live in exchange for being used as a test subject for an alien parasite.

It had a decent plot, interesting cimematography, clever ideas, etc, but for most reason unknown to me, it just didn't work as a whole. The only thing I can actually point to as a problem is one scene where they blatently ripped-off Matrix's 'Bullet-Time' as well as one character dressing like Neo and one like Morpheus.

A renter if you are really into the type of work the director does as it is quite interesting, but other then that Alive is unexciting.

Have you seen any of The Eye Trilogy yet? Actually the 3rd 1 hasnt been released yet i saw 1 and 2 and 2 was crap.

Originally posted by drunk
Have you seen any of The Eye Trilogy yet? Actually the 3rd 1 hasnt been released yet i saw 1 and 2 and 2 was crap.

Yes, I have seen the first which I actually liked. However I was unaware there was any sequels.

After a while, all of the Asian 'Spook' films tend to appear the same and melt into one another, but I recall The Eye being at the high end of that genre. For anyone interested in watching it, I believe that most US Blockbuster rental stores should have it in stock. Not that I am advocating Blockbuster as they are getting as bad as Wal-mart with editting the hell out of questionable films.

Despite the hype about this film (I am always disappointed with hyped films), Battle Royale was done incredibly well. Think a government sanctioned Lord or the Flies where only one person it to be left standing. Now this is not quite a horror film, but it was so good that I am listing it here. Even my girlfriend liked it and she tends to fall asleep during all my movies. Now that is some big praise. SEE THIS MOVIE!

Although Battle Royale was never officially produced for region 1 release, there are tons of well done bootleg copies available. If you own a PS2, you can also get a regional decoder to play all movies. The one I have is called AR Max (I think).

I also bought Battle Royale II along with the first, but haven’t gotten to see it yet so expect a review on that as well.