its a tough one, but i have to say battle royale is my favorite live-action japanese movie (takeshi kitano rocks)

what about you guys?

I'm a big takeshi kitano fan, though I prefer his written/directed movies (battle royale, imho, wasn't that great... the novel is much better than both the film & the manga) like Kikujiro, Fireworks (hana-bi), Brother, Violent Cop, Sonatine...

lately i've been really into takashi miike, and would have to say my favorite film of his would be The Happiness of the Katakuris, an extremely bizarre musical he did a few years back. Dead or Alive 1 & 2 kind of tie with that one. Dead or Alive: Final suffered from some seriously godawful acting (except for the 2 main characters)...

Gah! That was on SciFi Channel a couple of weeks back. I still can't make up my mind if it was brilliant (due to the sheer awfulness of it) or just plain freaky...

Still, it made a change from animated Japanese stuff!

seen koroshiya ichi?

Mines is definately yojimbo! Gotta love those 60's samurai films another masterpiece from Akira Kurosawa in my opinion.Yojimbo boasts the best escape scene ever as well as being my favourite samurai film.
This was the basis for a fistfull of dollars, in fact some of the dialogue was stolen word for word...

don't forget Battle Royale 2 was released in june

Yeah, most the 'spaghetti westerns' were direct translations of samurai flicks of the same era... some were even licensed.

Mine'd be Kagemusha, or Ran. ima huge kurosawa geek.

I like Kurosawa.

I dont watch live Japanese movies.

As far as im concerned the only live movies are the ones that are on the big screens in the US.

I usually only go to movies with big name actors in them.

As for real movies Star Wars 6 movies and Lord of the Rings Trilogy are the cream of the crop. No real movies even come close to how great these movies are.

The only Jap movie ive ever seen was Yojimbo, saw it in a film class i took in college. Ill admit it wasnt horrible, it was somewhat entertaining.

Bruce Willis redid that movie and its called last man standing i own that its pretty awesome. So i guess we steal some good ideas from the japs sometimes.

Only Asian actor i like is Jet Li, ill see anything with him in it. But i guess hes Chinese so nothing hes in would qualify.

And as far as best escape scene ever, that has to go to Matrix when they rescue Morpheus from the Agents building. Nothing comes close to that for an escape scene.

I've only seen 1, called Princess Blade. Not my all time favourite but kept me outta boredom

Love Letter

If you havn't seen this movie you're missing something great.
It's about a girl, Watanabe Hiromi (I think) and her late fiancé,
Fuuji Itsuki... and the movie begins with his 2 year anniversity.
(he died two years earlier in a mountain climbing accident)

Anyways, Hiromi is in Itsuki's mom's home looking through school pics of him,
and she starts looking through all the adresses (of Itsuki's class)...
and she finds Itsuki's adress, and she writes it down on her arm
(even though she knows there's a highway where Itsuki's home used to be).

And so she starts sending letters to the non-existing Fuuji Itsuki,
but all of a sudden she gets answers.... dun dun DUN!! um.. but hey,
there's nothing like "letters from heaven" or "mysterious letters",
or anything like that... hm... you'll have to see the movie to understand.

the ending of this movie is the best ending I've seen,
I didn't know whether it was happy or unhappy (you judge!)
I think the movie is for teens... I dunno, but it's one of my favorites.
No magical crap (as in so many japanese movies) just memories...

yeah, i picked up a bootleg at a con not too long ago (turns out the R1 releases in a few months - oh well) and was pretty, uh, disturbed...


um... what? did you actually SEE the last two star wars movies? and you thought they were good?

you, sir, are beyond help.

the LOTR movies were certainly good, but not exactly god's gift to cinema. most of the films I watch are all in foreign languages because, well, US films are so recycled & boring with their explosions and predictability, not to mention the over-the-top, unrealistic violence. (for realistic violence, rent a takeshi kitano film, or the aforementioned koroshiya ichi)
hmm... maybe not that one.

not that movies should be about realism or whatever, but films like Matrix Reloaded really get on my nerves, what with their pseudo-intellectualism, half-hour (yawn) fight scenes and complete ripping off of Grant Morrisson's ideas. It seems that instead of getting better & better (as they should), American films just get worse & worse. More often than not I regret buying a movie ticket.

Even worse, the BT community mostly seems to circulate the same crap instead of disseminating quality material. and i was so waiting for a pre-screener of Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life (the first one sucked but this one will be different?) yeah, right

bored now.

it's anoying i've still never seen Kagemusha i really wanna though, such a great story well piece of history...

I just saw a movie called "Versus" last night... it was pretty good

kinda like a mix between Evil Dead and Matrix

Isn't that about some teens on motorbikes in Tokyo?
uh... maybe I got it totally wrong *runs far away*

I saw this movie called "red bridge..." or something...
about some girl who needed sex to release her water.
this sounds really weird, but it was a pretty good movie.

hehe... suddenly I want to watch Evil Dead for some reason...
I just love it when he has to remove his hand...
blood all over the room! and the hand is still nuts!

Speaking of Takashi Miike - Audition is one of my favorites from the last few years, although I never ever want to see that movie again...freaky...

Otherwise: Seven Samurai was pretty good...I liked some of the segments in Kurosawa's Dreams, which was fun just for the lush cinematography.

That's about all I can think of right now...

Shichinin Samurai was good....

Also, I've been getting into the Zatoichi movies that they show saturday mornings/afternoons on IFC...

there's a scene at the end of Dead or Alive where there's a western-style showdown between the two main characters... the good guy (a cop) tries to run down the yakuza guys in his car (on a dirt road) and one of them throws a grenade into the car, blows his car up... after the wreckage settles, the cop stands up.. his left arm is just barely hanging on.. he rips it off, and tosses it away like "f**k this, i don't need it anymore" and starts walking towards the yakuza again...

priceless scene. I won't say what happens next b/c it pretty much spoils the whole movie.

Bankotsu is Patrioil PAYING you to make Americans look bad?

No, she must have your family hostage, cuz there isn't enough money in the world to make ANYONE write something so completely FUCKING STUPID.

You know... American movies that are made are great even without "Japanese" ideas. What do you mean by Live Movies(Going to the theater to watch it?) LoL, Hey I can sit on my ass and watch Ocean's 11 on my VHS player can I call that a "Live movie"? Correct me if I'am wrong but I don't think theres such a thing called a live movie.

Unless u mean plays, I think they mean live-action filmed movies (as opposed to animated).

I like american movies, I would choose them over korean movies but i watch some korean movies like cop movies and stuff like that or just watch korean comedy tapes from time to time

I'm glad you said it it saved me running my mouth off again... but i prolly will anyway.
I mean come on, to say that last man standing was a better movie than yojimbo...
*fights back rage* i refuse to even make an arguement for it lets just say i disagree and as for the rest of it, where do you start!
There has been so many great films that came out of America but with the frequency of utter dross that comes out of hollywood it's almost easy to forget that... Bankotsu mate, to exclude films from other countries is "a wee shame so it is" i can only hope you see something that changes your mind, coz if ya only watch big budget blockbusters you're missing out dude.

I don't hate americans! ^^; ... not all of them...
you make me look so bad mvorman... *sob*
I mean, some ppl are idiots... some of them americans...
*looks at Banko* eh... and what was that post u made,
little Banko...? this:

those are often the worst movies... really. ^^;
like my despise for george Clooney.. ugh.. I hate him!
all those big stars (well almost... I like Tom Cruise, he's funny)
are so stuck up.... and mean to their employes...
the best movies are often the low budget once... right?
um... there's one chinese movie I just love:
"In the Mood for Love" - I mean the settings! the music!
it's too gorgeous... when the main characters pass each other by...

many american movies are good tho,
my favorite movie is american: Edward Scissorhands ^^

Gotta love Jonny depp, hope he makes a good Willie Wonka... coz if they ruin that story! well i'll bloody take them off my christmas card list.

Hmm.. Battle Royale is definitely good...

I'm not sure if these other two are Japanese, they might be Korean, but they're good anyways:

Attack the Gas Station and Volcano High. So funny and awesome.

And if you're in the mood to seriously fuck up your mind, Visitor Q is always a good pick.