The V

That last line sells it to me!

Just saw this. The fights and stunts are brutal and thoroughly excellent. There's really no excuse to not see this. Sadly, I don't enjoy these types of movies as much as I did when I was 13. I'm off to watch The Royal Tenenbaums and have a cry at what I have lost...

Every time I see the advert for MOONRISE KINGDOM, I get a little bit more angry. FUCK OFF, WES!

I really didn't enjoy this. The fights were brutal, but nothing else. They were brutal the whole way through. The brutality said nothing. There wasn't really any clever set pieces, just people hitting each other for no real reason. It sat on the uncomfortable boundary between gritty realism and 'they should have all been dead several punches ago'. The hackneyed bent cop bit added nothing, much like the pregnant wife. The two leads (I guess) were pretty good, but... yeah, ridiculous.

I think I might watch Elite Squad again.

Yeah, I kinda am coming down on your side. I enjoyed it, but it's the kinda film you should really only watch on some obscure channel at 11pm after you're shitted. There is absolutely NO plot and the feeble attempts to add any make absolutely no difference. I don't give two shits about any of the characters because they're either a) swarthy looking Indonesian thugs or b) identikit coppers. NO RACIST. I'm pretty sure most of the audience for a film like this would have been A-OK without any pretense of a plot in the first place, so the feeble bullshit we get here... Every time the characters stop to talk, I was booooored. And, in fact, by the end of the film, I was actually worn down by the amount of fight scenes. Like you say, I've now seen every single combination of a dude being kneed in the chest humanly possible. Don't get me wrong, I "OOOH!"d and "AHHH"d at the right moments and that lead dude is Double Plus Hard, but it's a B-Movie by every definition. Nowt wrong with that.

BEST POSSIBLE VIEWING EXPERIENCE: With a bunch of lads, wankered, possibly on a stag do.

I'm very excited about what the fight choreographer does next, if attached to a better plot, though.

I'm coming round to this view.  My initial reaction was that it was very well put together.  A nice and spare if slightly silly storyline.  I get what you're saying about the b movie thing.

What stands out though was that while I was sitting thinking, "Yeesh!" I had a guy in the row behind honking with laughter at every act of extreme violence.  (It didn't help that TAW had pointed him out at the start and said that she knew him and that he was a tosser, which of course he confirmed by his utterly moronic behaviour, which of course I couldn't ignore for the duration of the film.)  It made me ask the question, is this film for him or for me?

I think seeing the director in interviews leads me more to the former than the latter.  He sees himself as something of a Tarantino, it seems to me.  But he's Welsh, so he's obviously deluded.

Ian Newman Jack Krumb's Guide to Grammar

It was fuckin' awesome. Only way it could've been better is if it was about 20 mins shorter because yeah, nobody cares about the dialogue (I spent ages sorting out subs, needn't have bothered) and fighting fatigue does set in a bit. OTOH every 3 minutes or so there was a HOLY FUCK moment so I was well 'appy.

How many action movies have you seen over the last ten years where you genuinely went "Oohhh!" and winced at the fighting? THE RAID and...? I can never watch Statham with his top off slapping dudes ever again. But yeah, if the dudes behind that had a good script, it'd be epic.

The amount of OOOH was specifically why I liked it. I don't recall having seen an action film as invigorating in purely visceral terms since--at least--ONG BAK. Makes the weak-ass Hollywood stuff look as shit as it actually is.

Did you do the English over Chinese (or something) subs one? That's what's put me off from watching it yet.

Even the cinematically released pure English subs were pretty shitty. You can honestly just ignore most of the subs, the weak-ass plot there is just gets in the way of STAB! STAB! BONE BREAK!

How many action movies have you seen over the last ten years where you genuinely went "Oohhh!" and winced at the fighting?

You need to watch more Asian cinema, methinks.

I watch a lot of asian cinema! Most of it features women getting shot in the face, mind. And not with guns.

Not only did I grab the best available subs (if you're on Demonoid, they're linked in the comments - don't use the shit ones that come with the file), I reencoded and hardsubbed the fucker so I could watch it on teh XBawks. The Demonoid-linked subs are perfectly acceptable (I've seen commercial releases with worse translation/idiom errors, tbh). But they are largely surplus to requirements; I reckon you can follow what plot there is from the visuals alone.

While Holywood lies infected with the disease of shakycam, the Asians still deliver many convincingly filmed action thrills every year.

Off the top of my head: OLDBOY, THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE WEIRD, MAN FROM NOWHERE, ONG BAK, THE RAID, 13 ASSASINS, all have excelent action scenes.

I find a bit silly that people complain about lack of good films and still look at Holywood, btw. Today, the best films are being done in Asia. The best noirs? Asian. The best thrillers? Asian. The best horror, actioneers, dramas? Asian, asian, asian. Holywood still has an edge in money and their sheer amount of movies produces and production values means they churn out more average to watchable movies every year. But when it comes to pure cinematic pleasure, the kind of movies you grab your friends' ears and yell at them to watch this fucking movie?

Asia all the way.

You have to remember that usually we only got access to the best of their stuff, the stuff that is so good word gets out and we hear about, the stuff they deem good enough to export.

As someone who had access to craploads of pirated stuff, I can tell you their shit is just as shitty.

I'm not arguing that, but the fact remains they are producing many more, better movies, with less money.

And that's counting HK, Japan and Korea mostly. Malaysia and Thailand are joining the action. Even Bollywoodis trying to make some of their movies more, well, less Bollywood-y.

> I'm not arguing that, but the fact remains they are producing many more, better movies, with less money.

I wouldn't say "many more". Even if you put all Asia together I think overall I see more good movies, or at least movies I like, out of Hollywood than out of Asia. For example I can count the great Korean films I have seen with one hand and it's usually years between the movies. China and Japan fair better, but even then I at best see one or two good movies out of them a year.

Japan is a bit of a letdown these days since their Anime industry now seems more interested in making Moe Moe Moomoo harem bullshit and selling fuck pillows to their nerds than in making stuff I might be interested in.

And yes, they cost less money, but everything costs less money in most of those countries.

> And that's counting HK, Japan and Korea mostly. Malaysia and Thailand are joining the action.

Thailand makes awesome action flicks since apparently they have an endless supply of cheap suicidal stuntmen for Tony Ja to break or to throw from buildings. But have you seen their horror and thriller stuff? Not up to par.

I can count the great Korean films I have seen with one hand

You need to watch more Korean films

Vengueance Trilogy, The Host, Memories of Murder, Mother, Good, Bad, Weird, Man from Nowhere, a Bittersweet life, City of Violence, I saw the Devil, The Chaser, the Yellow Sea, The Unjust, JSA and I'm sure I'm forgetting a few

apan is a bit of a letdown these days

Are we talking about the same Japan who releases awesomeness like Panty & Stocking and HS of the Dead? And you are forgetting about Miike or Tsukamoto, Welcome to the NHK is supposed to be awesome, same as Kaiba and Musishi. You are mistaking Anime's most commercial side, which has always been present, with the proper belly of japanese animation and cinema, where all that lovely weirdness lives in.

Thailand makes awesome action flicks since apparently they have an endless supply of cheap suicidal stuntmen for Tony Ja to break or to throw from buildings. But have you seen their horror and thriller stuff? Not up to par.

My point is we are starting to see flicks coming from those countries. I'm sure some people said the same about Korean films when Memories of Murder showed up. Or about HK gun operas. Or the Shaw Bros. Or Kurosawa. There is talent everywhere, what these countries are getting now is exposure.

NOWHERE TO HIDE is definitely worth looking at too.   It seems like the whole Korean film industry's taken a hit since that Free Trade agreement with them meant they couldn't limit the number of American films invading their theatres anymore.

Noted.

I heard about thte free trade business too, but it's still too soon to see what kind of effect it will have. As it is, I'm already excited about a few Korean movies coming this year.

What worries me more is Hollywood poaching directorial talent only to bugger with the films and make the directors lose their edge.

Man, I cannot BELIEVE I forgot 13 ASSASSINS, that was tits

I put 13 ASSASSINS on in the background yesterday and was lost after 20 minutes. Note to self: You cannot follow foreign language films if you're not looking at the screen.

Well, yes.

I just peeled back the veil of irony to reveal that I really am LITERALLY a fuckwit.

I liked the Korean film I'm a Cyborg, but That's OK quite a lot.

I saw it with 7 male friends at a midnight showing when it came out, my friend summed it up best when he said "If they replaced Best Picture with 'Most Neck Wounds' at the Academy Awards, every future movie would just be a remake of The Raid."

Ryan "The deluxe Blu-ray set comes with a kevlar neck protector" Richards

I wonder how The Raid will effect the new Judge Dredd film?

Ryan "shared thoughtspace" Richards

Every thread on it will have one dude claiming it's a rip off of The Rain, and everyone else pointing out it was in the can before The Raid came out.

And one person to point out that Banlieue 13 came before both of them.

I really hope people don't make too much of the simularities to The Raid, but I'm sure the net won't be able to help but do so.

I don't know how Dredd purist feel, but the trailer for Dredd looks pretty damn awesome, and I can live in a world with multiple awesome action movies with vaguely similar plot points.