Saturday, July 25, 2009

The first asian movies I saw

I began watching asian movies quite late, to late maybe, and I had the probably the most normal beginning in this area: Jackie Chan. I still consider Jackie Chan a genius (and I'm very aware that he's not the hippest guy nowadays), especially in the movies from the eighties. I saw Police Story on a fullscreen vhs and was amazed by the stunts and fighting. I started to collect a lot of tapes, and soon I found A better tomorrow 2 - which I know people consider is a weak part in this trilogy, but for me it's always been the best. Just Heroes is also one of the first Woo-movies I saw and it's a shame it's so forgotten.

But before that it was really two movies that shaped my asian (or at least Hong Kong-taste): Mad Mission 4 and G.I. Samurai! I had (and still have) both of these on swedish x-rentals and Mad Mission 4 was the best action movie I've ever seen. I still consider it a masterpiece of action-comedys, and the best part in this series of movies (I have a wonderful korean box with 1-5). G.I. Samurai was the first japanese movie I saw, and what an experience! Violent action, cools stunts, interesting drama and the best big battle in history. And this was the cut, dubbed version

I see now that I still consider the first asian movie I saw among the best ones, so maybe it's all nostalgia (which I really despise, but I'm probably fooling myself) and nothing else...

(and now I totally left out Godzilla, because that's a whole different story)

2 comments:

Weekend Video said...

Couldn´t agree with you more about A Bettter Tomorrow 2. A f**king great movie and i can´t watch the end without tears in my eyes. It´s so brutal, loyal to the end and just perfect! Love your work here, keep it up, man!

Jack J said...

Who recons ABT2 is a weak film? Certainly not all the old fanzines from 15 yrs ago, LOL. It was heralded as a heroic bloodshed masterpiece and I fully agree. It's awesome.

I have all the ACES GO PLACES (aka Mad Mission) films on VCD! (haha) and I agree with you on those ones too (what a surprise). They're very entertaining. I first watched them on German TV in the early 90s. Part 4 by the way has an extra scene at the beginning in the English dubbed version.