Foreign films that don't suck... (it's worth having to read the subtitles)

(it's worth having to read the subtitles) - the rub.

Pan's Labyrinth
The trailer is stunningly unrepresentative of the movie. Watching the trailer is not going to make you want to see the movie.
It is a very good movie. With a solid storyline. The creatures in the movie are well done and awesome looking.




Troll Hunter

Seriously good brain candy. A little campy... but not too much. Hilarious, action packed and just cool.
Everyone I have told to watch it...ends up liking it after they thought they wouldn't.


Wow its strange that you bring up foreign films right now. I love Russian and Italian older films and right now, I am having to HARDCODE subtitles into the movies in order for them to be played on TV.

If you are also doing this,,,,,,I found that HANDBRAKE ( which is FREE) works great for hard coding subs, plus, it is a very powerful program

HandBrake: Open Source Video Transcoder
 
Three great French movies made over half century ago are still great movies today.

The first being "A Man and Women", a very stylish and very romantic movie about a man and woman who meet, separate, and meet. The cinematography and music are wonderful. The film was nominated for 4 academy awards and won Best Foreign Film. Be sure and get the subtitled version of the film of you speak french.


The second being The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, a movie with a sweeping love story, beautiful cinematography and music.



Lastly, "Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris" Now here is a very different type of movie. This musical, an adaptation of the cult favorite off Broadway revue, presents dramatic English versions of songs by revered Belgian singer-songwriter Jacques Brel. There is no overarching narrative to the film which shifts considerably in tone and visuals evoking Brel's dark humor and his obsessions with death, depravity and hedonism. Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 100% rating. There is an English and French version.
 
Yeah, South Korean movies are far better than today's Hollywood movies.

Squid Game is actually below average for South Korean fare.
I have just watch two South Korean productions, The Extraordinary Attorney Woo and The Kings Affection. Both had good reviews and were excellent. The dubbing is pretty decent which makes them easier to watch. Apparently these films are getting pretty popular because Netflix has a category called K dramas dubbed in English.
 
I have just watch two South Korean productions, The Extraordinary Attorney Woo and The Kings Affection. Both had good reviews and were excellent. The dubbing is pretty decent which makes them easier to watch. Apparently these films are getting pretty popular because Netflix has a category called K dramas dubbed in English.
I prefer to watch in the original language with English subtitles. It feels and sounds unnatural to watch them with English dubbing.

I highly recommend Park Chan-wook's revenge trilogy: Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance,
Oldboy, and Lady Vengeance. You don't have to watch them in any particular order. They are all standalone movies. I suggest Oldboy first.

Spike Lee made a US version of Oldboy and fucked it all up.

The best K-drama is Stranger. It's two seasons so far. It's a very complex show, but well worth watching.

Most K-dramas suck. They are romance shows which target young adults. Stranger is adult fare.

Two really good horror movies from South Korea are The Host and Train to Busan.

In almost every thriller/crime/horror movie from South Korea, an adorable little girl is placed in great peril. Some of them will break your heart.
 
I could not find a good trailer for season 1 of Stranger. They are all fan tributes and annoying.

Here's a trailer for season 2:

 
I prefer to watch in the original language with English subtitles. It feels and sounds unnatural to watch them with English dubbing.

I highly recommend Park Chan-wook's revenge trilogy: Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance,
Oldboy, and Lady Vengeance. You don't have to watch them in any particular order. They are all standalone movies. I suggest Oldboy first.

Spike Lee made a US version of Oldboy and fucked it all up.

The best K-drama is Stranger. It's two seasons so far. It's a very complex show, but well worth watching.

Most K-dramas suck. They are romance shows which target young adults. Stranger is adult fare.

Two really good horror movies from South Korea are The Host and Train to Busan.

In almost every thriller/crime/horror movie from South Korea, an adorable little girl is placed in great peril. Some of them will break your heart.
I'll try The Stranger. I think it's on Netflix. I like a lot of romantic dramas and comedies so there are a some Korean productions I liked such as Extraordinary Attorney Woo and The Kings Affection. I have a problem with my eyes that makes it difficult to read a lot of subtitles so I find dubbed movies to be a better alternative than subtitles.

Did you watch one called Mr. Sunshine on Netflix. It looked interesting.

Dubbing is a lot better than it use to be. I remember dubbing in which there was no synchronization with lip movement. Today, they use voice actors and do a pretty good job of syncing. The problem is that the sound track is deleted and the film is turnover to an audio production company that recreates the sound track. Thus there is alteration in script and music as needed for syncing. Also the film director is not usually involved in the dubbing so the voice actors are interpreting the script as they choose sometimes creating a sound track that's not that good. One thing you might notice is that movies that are shot and the plans are to dub, there are few extreme facial closeups.
 
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Three great French movies made over half century ago are still great movies today.

The first being "A Man and Women", a very stylish and very romantic movie about a man and woman who meet, separate, and meet. The cinematography and music are wonderful. The film was nominated for 4 academy awards and won Best Foreign Film. Be sure and get the subtitled version of the film of you speak french.


The second being The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, a movie with a sweeping love story, beautiful cinematography and music.



Lastly, "Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris" Now here is a very different type of movie. This musical, an adaptation of the cult favorite off Broadway revue, presents dramatic English versions of songs by revered Belgian singer-songwriter Jacques Brel. There is no overarching narrative to the film which shifts considerably in tone and visuals evoking Brel's dark humor and his obsessions with death, depravity and hedonism. Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 100% rating. There is an English and French version.

Have you ever seen Day for Night. Its a film about making a film.Very funny.
Day forr Night is some sort of filming process.
 
Il Postino
Cinema Paradiso
Mediteraneo
Motorcycle Diaries
Kagemusha
Downfall
Cyrano de Bergerac (Depardiu)
Jean De Florrete
Manon des Soyrces
 
I prefer to watch in the original language with English subtitles. It feels and sounds unnatural to watch them with English dubbing.

I highly recommend Park Chan-wook's revenge trilogy: Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance,
Oldboy, and Lady Vengeance. You don't have to watch them in any particular order. They are all standalone movies. I suggest Oldboy first.

Spike Lee made a US version of Oldboy and fucked it all up.

The best K-drama is Stranger. It's two seasons so far. It's a very complex show, but well worth watching.

Most K-dramas suck. They are romance shows which target young adults. Stranger is adult fare.

Two really good horror movies from South Korea are The Host and Train to Busan.

In almost every thriller/crime/horror movie from South Korea, an adorable little girl is placed in great peril. Some of them will break your heart.
Did you know on Netflix you can stop the dubbing by selecting Korean as the audio language and English subtitles. That is not the case will all dubbed movies elsewhere.
 
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Hilarious. The cast are inteviewed by a film reporter. They all believe that the film is about their character.
A script written by a man who has suffered from actors egos in the past.
Do you know if it's available on Youtube?

When doing some amateur movie making, I experimented with with day for night. There are a lots of problems with this. Shadows are off. Color looks terrible. And it creates unrealistic images. In old B&W movies they would just shoot them in daylight and but a filter on the lens which makes everything look grey or shoot at night with their fastest film which makes everything look black except for lights.
 
South Korea also gave us a pretty interesting science fiction series (The Silent Sea) recently as well as The Amazing Attorney Woo series. Both surprisingly good.
I think the title is Extraordinary Attorney Woo It is one of my favorite series on Netflix. The girl that played Woo, Park Eun-bin was just great.

She plays in another Korean movie that came out in 2022 on Netflix, The kings Affection. I have started it and it is very good so far. This series takes place in the Josein dynasty in which the twins, a boy and a girl are born to royal family. The boy will become the king. The girl is be killed as was common with twins at that time. However, the young prince is killed and the mother substitutes the girl for the young prince. The story centers around the girl growing up pretending to be the prince facing many challenges including love, battle, marriage, and being King. Although the series is a romantic drama it does get bloody at times as well as being intensely romantic. Park Eun-bin gives a wonderful performance as the girl prince, fighting her desire to just be a girl and playing the role she has been dealt in life, knowing her life and her family depend on it.

The King's Affection is the first South Korean television series to win an International Emmy Award. Rotten Tomatoes gave a 91%. The first season is on Netflix and the second season is scheduled for release on Netflix in 2024.
 
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Are Brit films considered to be "foreign"?
That's a good question. Tommy could probably answer that better. To me, Brit films that are not release in US are foreign or if the accent and recording is such that I have to use subtitles, then I consider it foreign.
 

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