Splatted Wrote:Thanks for the reccomendations everyone. 亀は意外と速く泳ぐ and fish story sound good. Can you reccommend some sites you go to to find out about these movies. I only know drama sites.

Tokyo gore police and machine girl are...not quite what I wanted. The trailers amused me but I don't think I'd want to sit through a whole movie of that. I'm not really looking for sex and violence specifically, they're just the most obvious things that are lacking. Things like characters not necassarily being positive role models, the issues they deal with and the way in which these issues are portrayed are what really matters.

Like I said before. Just avoid the J-horror/gore/big-budget/live-action-anime films and then you'll get to the good stuff.

Splatted Wrote:Care to share some examples? How do you find them?

As far as drama goes, I don't go to any particular website. I just go to amazon.co.jp and browse for dramas.

Here are some recommendations:

振り返れば奴がいる　－　This is a tense drama about a really skilled doctor. The problem is that he doesn't care about his patients at all. If his patients can't be saved, he just lets them die. He doesn't give a rat's ass about anything. Also, he takes bribes from other people. So he's a pretty evil guy. Then, another doctor appears who has high moral standards, and they clash. This is one of the best dramas I've seen. There is very little comedy. It's an old drama from the early 90s, but it's really good.

Here's a clip from youtube:

鉄の骨　－　　An innocent man who's working in a construction company wants a promotion badly. So he gets involved in some morally corrupt situations when he's forced to participate in bid-rigging. The cops find him at the end, and he was forced to rat out every single out of his companions. It's pretty intense throughout. Almost no comedy at all.

Here's another clip:

不毛地帯　－　It's about a military strategist who have been captured by the Russians in World War 2 and was being kept in a Siberia camp. So after he returns to Japan, he starts working in an oil trading company. And the company starts getting involved in corruption and the such. Another thing about this drama is that the foreigners in here are pretty good, they're portrayed just like anyone else.

Tori-kun Wrote:Indeed it is! I also really liked it I'm looking for some equivalent.. I mean, of course, there will be no "copy" per se, but some Drama/Thriller movie being so beautiful, I mean. If anyone has suggestions, please share with me.

it depends what you you're looking for. Similar visual beauty by the same director? http://asianmediawiki.com/Tetsuya_Nakashima
his 下妻物語 is quite beautiful, completely different genre though.

if you want more revenge-movies you should try some korean films like
Lady Vengeance

A Bittersweet Life

The Man from Nowhere

i've ignored these for the longest time since they were not available in japanese, so yea, dont be like me Those movies are masterpieces if you ask me (IMDb agrees). Same goes for the other korean movies i've listed in the other post. It's mostly intense thrillers. There's more action & blood than in Kokuhaku, but they're all of similar quality - so if you enjoy revenge movies you will have a blast.

other than that, it doesnt give away that much but... posting the the Kokuhaku ending quote is not a good idea lol. du spoiler-Schweini.

Bokusenou Wrote:LOL, I'm reading the novel currently, and enjoying it a lot! ^-^ Nice and dark. XD
I'm going to watch the movie after I finish it. If the movie is even half as good as the novel, it'll be a masterpiece.

it is! better hurry up before tori-kun quotes the rest of the ending ^-^ seriously though, the soundtrack, cinematography, cast & acting were fantastic.

Realism Wrote:Here's the thing. Movies like A Bittersweet Life, I saw the Devil, Oldboy, comes along once in a WHILE. What does Korea make in BETWEEN those movies?? Just your average hit-or-miss stuff. Some ok, some trash, that's the problem.

Japan is quite the opposite. There big films like Kaiji, K20-Legend of the Mask, Gantz, 20th Century Boys are just straight up garbage. But what Japan makes in BETWEEN those movies are usually very, very good. Much better than Korea and China in my opinion.

But if you want a Japanese movie like A Bittersweet Life....check out Hazard by Sion Sono. Sono's best movie by far.

I will, thanks!

As for the frequency of great korean/japanese movies, I'm not really concerned about that. I do value all the funky, creative & bizarre stuff from Japan just as much as the random awesome movie from any other country. Doesn't really matter what they make in between as long as we focus on the good stuff, right? Movies like "Turtles are surprisingly fast swimmers" are priceless, I agree... I mean, come on, the title alone...

keikei Wrote:

Bokusenou Wrote:LOL, I'm reading the novel currently, and enjoying it a lot! ^-^ Nice and dark. XD
I'm going to watch the movie after I finish it. If the movie is even half as good as the novel, it'll be a masterpiece.

it is! better hurry up before tori-kun quotes the rest of the ending ^-^ seriously though, the soundtrack, cinematography, cast & acting were fantastic.

Don't worry, I skipped that part as soon as I saw he quoted the ending. I've got another 30 or so pages to go, but after I finish the novel I definitely intend on watching the movie!

@Tori 善かれと思ってしたけど、ネタバレしてくれないかな？
EDIT: OK, I finished the novel, and read the line, and it didn't spoil anything I didn't already know at the point where I was in the book. ^-^; Guess I overreacted.

If we're talking about films I'd like to recommend Survival Style 5 as an amusing and completely mental film and レイクサイドマーダーケース - three sets of parents are at a study camp with their children to prepare them for high school entrance exams and the parents end up having to cover up a murder.

Realism Wrote:stuff and shizzle

Great! Those look more like the kind of dramas I want to watch, thanks a lot. They're probably too hard right now but I finally have something to work towards audio wise , so thats fine.

I'm still a bit confused about how you find movies though. If there's not a site you check how do you find out what's being released so you can "avoid the J-horror/gore/big-budget/live-action-anime films" and "get to the good stuff"?

Splatted Wrote:

Realism Wrote:stuff and shizzle

Great! Those look more like the kind of dramas I want to watch, thanks a lot. They're probably too hard right now but I finally have something to work towards audio wise , so thats fine.

I'm still a bit confused about how you find movies though. If there's not a site you check how do you find out what's being released so you can "avoid the J-horror/gore/big-budget/live-action-anime films" and "get to the good stuff"?

Here are some ways I watch the dramas/movies.

- http://video.baidu.com/ - Go here, and type in the names of the drama I recommended. You can find every episode here (and hundreds of other J-dramas and movies). Just watch them online. Only Chinese subtitles though.

- If you live in Japan, just buy them from a store or order them from amazon

- http://www.asiatorrents.com/index.php?pa...category=2 Go here, you can download all the movies using torrent. They have all kinds of Japanese movies and dramas

If you're interested I found a ton of other content along few American shows dubbed into Japanese on pandora.tv

ie prison break
http://videonavi.blog66.fc2.com/blog-entry-1001.html

You'll need to register to view most of them. Just switch the language to Eng/Jap from Korean and you're all good

oregum Wrote:If you're interested I found a ton of other content along few American shows dubbed into Japanese on pandora.tv

ie prison break
http://videonavi.blog66.fc2.com/blog-entry-1001.html

You'll need to register to view most of them. Just switch the language to Eng/Jap from Korean and you're all good

That site is awesome! o_o

Thanks for the links. Those sites look great.