East Asian Movies I must Watch
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- DirectorTimo TjahjantoStarsJoe TaslimIko UwaisJulie EstelleIto, a gangland enforcer, is caught amidst a treacherous and violent insurrection within his Triad crime family upon his return home from a stint abroad.
- DirectorPen-Ek RatanaruangStarsTadanobu AsanoSinitta BoonyasakTakashi MiikeA suicidal, obsessively compulsive Japanese librarian is forced to lie low in Thailand with a pot-smoking woman coping with the recent loss of her sister.
- DirectorSergei BodrovStarsTadanobu AsanoAmadu MamadakovKhulan ChuluunThe story recounts the early life of Genghis Khan who was a slave before going on to conquer half the world in 1206.
- DirectorDanny PangOxide Chun PangStarsPawarith MonkolpisitPremsinee RatanasophaPatharawarin TimkulThe story is of a deaf-mute hitman and his partner who are based in Bangkok. He is friends with his partner's girlfriend who is a stripper at a local club. They go about their assassination business as usual as the boss climbs the underworld ladder and forms new alliances. Flashbacks explain how he got to this point in his life. He forms a relationship with a young woman from the pharmacy who is caring and innocent. The hunts continue as treachery begins. A big name hit makes him realize that good people are hurt by his actions. The first rule of assassination closes in on him as he strikes revenge.
- DirectorApichatpong WeerasethakulStarsKanokporn TongaramMin OoJenjira PongpasThe story of a love affair that begins during a picnic on the Thai-Burmese border.
- DirectorItthisoontorn VichailakStarsAnuchit SapanpongAdul DulyaratPongpat WachirabunjongInspired by the life of Luang Pradit Pairoh the most revered traditional Thai music master who lived during the reigns of Kings Rama V to VIII.
- DirectorTony BuiStarsNgoc Hiep NguyenNgoc MinhPhat Trieu HoangAlthough the hearts and goals and desires are different for everyone in a culturally-shifting Ho Chi Minh City, the stories of four separate individuals paint a vivid picture of the past, present, and future of a city eking into a new era.
- DirectorDang Nhat MinhStarsVân LêLuu Viet Bao DangYen HoangDuyen faces a daily struggle to care for her young son and her weakened father-in-law, while keeping secret the fact that her husband died in a battle during the war.
- DirectorAnh Hung TranStarsNu Yên-Khê TranQuynh NhuKhanh LeWith the brilliant Vietnamese summer as a setting Vertical Ray of the Sun is beautiful from beginning to end. The plot centres around three sisters, two of whom are happily married (or so it appears). The youngest sister is single and living with her cute older brother, whom she is desperately in love with. A second sister is married to a man who has another woman and child elsewhere whom he loves just as much as his wife -with a few conditions, she agrees to carry on with the marriage. The third sister and her husband are overjoyed to discover she is pregnant, and though he is tempted, her husband remains loyal to her. Charming, slow-paced, face value, family saga film.
- DirectorPen-Ek RatanaruangTom Pen-Ek RatanaruangStarsTasanawalai OngartittichaiBlack PhomtongLalita PanyopasA woman, fired from a financial coorporation during the Asia crisis, returns home with no money. However, she finds a box with a fortune in front of her door, and decides to keep it. However, the people that left it there soon want it back.
- DirectorHsing LeeStarsHui-Lou ChenShao-Ching ChouBi-Hui FuPeigang, his family's only son for three generations running, is to be executed on account of larceny, but not without the intervention of his grandmother.
- DirectorHsin-yao HuangStarsCres ChuangBamboo Chu-Sheng ChenLeon DaiOne day when Pickle and his friend Belly Bottom watch the dashcam recordings of Pickle's boss they stumble upon a secret.
- DirectorGisaburô SugiiStarsKôjiro ShimizuKenji HagaMiki FujitaniA crime boss searching for the world's best fighters pursues a talented Japanese drifter and his American ex-classmate, while an Interpol agent and a US Army captain seek to bring him down.
- DirectorGisaburô SugiiStarsTonpei HidariMasachika IchimuraNobue IchitaniA young peasant boy named Jack climbs a giant beanstalk and stumbles upon a city in the clouds ruled by an evil queen.
- DirectorShaudi WangStarsTa-Chi ChienChien-Yu ChuangDai-Wen ChuangA 5 year old kid moves to live with his grandma in a small town at Taiwan. Soon after, he discovers that her grandma is not only a vendor, but also she is good at catching spectres. One day, she comes across that her grandson has mistakenly releases some of the most ferocious ghosts from her house...
- DirectorKuo-Fu ChenStarsRene LiuWu BaiChen Chao-jungAn attractive and successful doctor places a personal ad in a newspaper to try to meet (and eventually marry) Mr. Right. A succession of blind dates ensues, featuring men who are lonely, desperate, dangerous and perverted.
- DirectorYu-Hsun ChenStarsAkio ChenYi-fan ChenHsiao-fan FanYoung boy, Ah-Jiang, a school failure and day dreamer witnesses the kidnapping of a child. After being taken hostage by a corrupt family, he begins an unusual adventure away from home.
- DirectorHsiao-Hsien HouStarsTien-Lu LiGiong LimKuei-Chung ChengPuppeteer Li Tian-lu tells his life story, and through it, the story of Taiwan in the first half of the 20th century.
- DirectorToon WangStarsJen Chang-binXianmei ChenPin-Yuan HuangSet in 1920s Taiwan under Japanese rule, two men join the Chiu-Fen gold rush hoping for riches, while a widow struggles and a prostitute yearns for freedom. A mine collapse traps miners as the widow leaves town.
- DirectorKun-Hou ChenStarsChun-Fang ChangFu-Sheng TsuiDoze NiuThe story follows a young man as he changes from an intelligently aware youth, to a teenager with much less confidence than he once had, and finally, to a stable adult.
- DirectorEros DjarotStarsPitradjaya BurnamaChristine HakimRudy WoworTjoet Nja' Dhien assumes the leadership when her husband Teuku Umar is killed in an ambush. Dhien's charismatic presence and power of survival motivate the locals to join and later continue their opposition to the Dutch in Aceh in 1896.
- DirectorUsmar IsmailStarsChitra DewiIndriati IskakMieke WijayaA family's attempt at matchmaking their oldest daughter and the conflicts that follow.
- DirectorUsmar IsmailStarsA.N. AlcaffAstamanAwaludinA hero of revolution returns to civilian life to find the new society very different from the ideals he fought for.
- DirectorApichatpong WeerasethakulStarsBanlop LomnoiSakda KaewbuadeeHuai DessomA romance between a soldier and a country boy, wrapped around a Thai folk-tale involving a shaman with shape-shifting abilities.
- DirectorLino BrockaStarsLolita RodriguezLilia DizonEddie GarciaThis landmark film is considered by many to be one of the most important in Philippine cinema. The son of a wealthy man, Junior has everything he could possibly want. But the emptiness of his extravagant lifestyle and the hypocrisy of the town's so-called leading citizens weigh heavily on him, pushing him to reach out to the village outcasts.
- DirectorSean EllisStarsJake MacapagalJohn ArcillaAlthea VegaThis riveting crime thriller follows Oscar, a recent emigrant to Manila who gets pulled into a harrowing world of corruption and violence when he takes a job as an armored car driver to support his family (in Tagalog w/ English subtitles).
- DirectorLav DiazStarsSid LuceroAngeli BayaniArchie AlemaniaAn embittered law student commits a brutal double murder; a family man takes the fall and is forced into a harsh prison sentence; a mother and her two children wander the countryside looking for some kind of redemption.
- DirectorLav DiazStarsCharo Santos-ConcioJohn Lloyd CruzMichael De MesaAfter 30 years of wrongful imprisonment, a woman plans to take revenge on her former lover.
- DirectorCelso Ad. CastilloStarsJanet BordonMyrna CastilloPepsi PalomaIn this story, three sisters are raised in a world where men are metaphorically and literally serpents of temptation by their God-fearing father. The girls are educated enough to read from the Bible.
- DirectorLav DiazStarsAngeli BayaniPerry DizonRoeder CamanagThree people engage in a strange therapy to get away from their agonies.
- DirectorMaryo J. de los ReyesStarsLorna TolentinoAlbert MartinezGloria RomeroEven though he is not good in school and belongs to a poor and unfortunate family, Magnifico still has a big heart and a large amount of optimism that enabled him to help not only his family, but also the community.
- DirectorMike De LeonStarsCharo Santos-ConcioJay IlaganVic SilayanA crime-drama-suspense genre film not often seen in Philippine cinema. A controlling patriarch loses it over his daughter's marriage and her attempts to escape from their incestuous household.
- DirectorIshmael BernalStarsNora AunorSpanky ManikanGigi DueñasElsa saw the blessed Virgin Mary who had changed her life and caused a hysteria in a poor isolated village.
- DirectorKidlat TahimikStarsKidlat TahimikMang FelyDolores SantamariaA Filipino jeepney driver (Kidlat Tahimik) who idolizes America's space program comes to reject the rapid encroachment of technology.
- DirectorPeque GallagaStarsCherie GilSandy AndolongLiza LorenaTwo affluent families struggle and learn to survive during the Japanese occupation in the Philippines.
- DirectorAnn HuiStarsMaggie CheungSiu-Kwong ChungTan Lang Jachi TianAfter the Sino-Japanese War, Kwei Dz, one of the family members of Japanese soldiers accepted a Chinese officer's proposal and remained in China. Later they had a daughter named Ann. The officer went to Hong Kong to work, leaving Kwei Dz and Ann in Macao. Kwei Dz, unable to communicate with her in-laws, much less accept their ways, became remorseful. Yet the worst problem she had was that Ann did not accept her as a mother. After Ann got a Master Degree in UK she went back to Hong Kong. Kwei Dz had been feeling very homesick for her mother country and decided to take Ann and return to Japan. In Japan, Ann began to understand her mother's pain because she did not understand Japan or the Japanese. Later a telegram from Canton arrived saying that Ann's grandfather had had a stroke. Upon seeing her to grandfather, Ann realized that, in spite of his now frail body, a body once tortured by Red Guards, he was so hopeful for China's future. Ann saw that China was now trying to find its own way in the midst of its self-inflicted turmoil.
- DirectorHark TsuiStarsJoey WangMaggie CheungWenzhuo ZhaoTwo snake spirits become human and learn about love and suffering. A monk discovers his own weaknesses and finds that morality is not as simple as he had thought.
- DirectorApichatpong WeerasethakulStarsNantarat SawaddikulJaruchai IamaramSophon PukanokStory about director Apichatpong Weerasethakul's parents, who were both doctors, and the director's memories about growing up in the hospital environment.
- DirectorJira MaligoolStarsPijaya VachajitpanDonlaya MudchaSonthaya ChitmaneeSet in 1950 and based on the series of autobiographical short stories by Archin Panjabhan, the beginning finds Archin (Pijaya Vachajitpan) expelled from Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University in his sophomore year. He is packed off to southern Thailand, where he has supposedly has a job waiting for him. It's in a remote, mountainous jungle that doesn't even "rate a spot on the map", a place that is little but all-consuming red mud and seemingly endless, torrential downpours. Archin arrives, letter of recommendation in hand, at the mining company office, only to be told that there are no jobs. The company's superintendent, Sam, a stern Australian veteran of the Death Railway who asks Archin if he is willing to do manual labor. Archin answers to the affirmative and he's hired. He's even given a house of his own, (which happens to haunted). Everyone, from the lowliest Malaysian laborers to John, the burly chief of the mining staff, derides Ajin as a "Bangkok boy" who isn't fit for hard work and Archin is constantly put to the test. Eventually, he becomes a trusted, integral member of the company, working as a surveyor.
- DirectorApichatpong WeerasethakulStarsThanapat SaisaymarJenjira PongpasSakda KaewbuadeeDying of kidney disease, a man spends his last, somber days with family, including the ghost of his wife and a forest spirit who used to be his son, on a rural northern Thailand farm.
- DirectorBi GanStarsTang WeiJue HuangSylvia ChangA man went back to Guizhou, found the tracks of a mysterious woman. He recalls the summer he spent with her twenty years ago.
- DirectorBo HuStarsYu ZhangYuchang PengUvin WangFour people in a Chinese city live through a complicated day as their lives intersect.
- DirectorShôhei ImamuraStarsKoji YakushoMisa ShimizuMitsuko BaishôA businessman kills his adulterous wife and is sent to prison. After the release, he opens a barbershop and meets new people, talking almost to no one except an eel he befriended while in prison.