The Best Asian Movies Movies to Watch

In the Dead Talents Society, ghosts haunting humans are less of a scare, and more a performance that can grant fame and fortune in the underworld. It makes for incredibly charming comedy. It affectionately satirizes East Asian horror in such a fresh way, comparing a ghost being remembered to today’s social media influencers, with views […]

While the enemy of my enemy is my friend, the two leads in The Gangster, the Cop, the Devil are more like an uneasy alliance of rivals competing to hunt down a serial killer. This isn’t a new concept. Filmmakers all over the world are fond of putting together two opposite characters and making them […]

The 2016 outing of South-Korean auteur director Park Chan-wook (maker of Oldboy and Stoker) once again shifts attention to the dark side of what makes us human: betrayal, violence, and transgression. Based on the 2002 novel Fingersmith by British author Sarah Waters, The Handmaiden revolves around the love of two women and the greedy men […]

Abuse is bad and should be reported, full stop. But it’s not so easy to do so, when abusers stay in positions of power, and the people who are assigned to keep them in check are cowardly against them. Silenced depicts true crime novel The Crucible, which in turn, is based on a real life […]

From Korean director Park Chan-wook, who also brought you the far quieter The Handmaiden, comes a movie that is positively terrifying. Its premise alone is enough for any sentient human being to shudder. On his daughter’s birthday, the good-for-nothing Oh Dae-su (played by Choic Min-sik) gets drunk and is arrested by the police. A friend […]

It’s been acclaimed as one the best Kung Fu movies ever made. You are probably wondering why this contemporary movie made that short list when its genre had its peak decades ago: it is visually striking and at the same time surprisingly story-oriented. As you would expect of course, there is quite a fair amount […]

Koreeda is a master of the tender gaze. He deals so softly, elegantly, and emphatically with the characters in his films, it will make you feel like you’re watching life itself in all its complex, emotional splendor. Maybe this is particularly true for this movie because it has been inspired by Koreeda’s memories of his […]

A thirst for love, a thirst for recognition, a thirst for sympathy, a thirst for meaning, a thirst for life, and a thirst for blood. Director Park Chan-wook and actor Song Kang-ho, two of the biggest names in South Korean cinema, join forces for the first time in a modern take on the supernatural. In […]

Can the Western only be made in the West? The Italians answered with the Spaghetti Western, and in 2010, China came up with their own gunslinging, horse riding group of gangsters in Let the Bullets Fly. It feels just like an old fashioned Western in Old China, only with quips as fast as its bullets, […]

War changes the way we view people from the other side. On the most fundamental level, seeing an enemy combatant can mean death, but this eventually bleeds out into anger and hatred towards the enemy, because of the loss, the pain, and the fear war tends to wage. War drama Welcome to Dongmakgol understands this, […]

Visiting a relative can feel strange, because especially when the loved one you share is gone, the visit will inevitably bring up feelings of grief, nostalgia, and being stuck because of it. But no visit would be as strange as the 1977 cult horror classic House. It’s a classic not because it’s particularly scary– in […]

Not many places are worse to find a dead body than in the border of North and South Korea. The tensions are high, the trust is low, and the conflict between them hasn’t been resolved in more than half a century. Joint Security Area is centered on a whodunit surrounding two North Korean soldiers at […]

The fantasy of being able to have the body you once had is impossible in real life, but we can watch it play out in fiction. While previous depictions of this idea rightfully point out ageism and how much worse people treat the old, Miss Granny also celebrates the wisdom and experience that could only […]

A special forces team conducts a raid at a multi-story ghetto building where a criminal boss runs his business. Things quickly go wrong and chaos ensues. Full of pure action, with no overblown Hollywood-type CGI nonsense. It is made the way action movies should be made, full of realistic fight scenes. It is exciting, brutal and […]

Martial arts is awesome, comedy is awesome, but the idea of putting them together wasn’t really explored until the late 1970s, when a young Jackie Chan made his breakthrough. One of the films he starred in was The Drunken Master, where Chan’s mischievous character goes under the tutelege of the titular teacher to fight against […]

After an initially disappointing breakthrough attempt to Hollywood, Jackie Chan pivoted back to Hong Kong, unexpectedly creating an iconic film franchise and maybe perhaps one of the best martial arts movies ever made. Police Story seems to be a simple story at first, but it was through this film that Chan’s spectacular stunts evolved for […]

Going by the Book is quite absurd. Of course, most people would understand not to take an assignment like this too literally, so when this deadpan, fastidious cop does so, it brings this mere simulation into an unpredictable, fascinating situation. It’s so funny. The film leans into the humor by depicting the horrifying possibility before […]

Alternatively known as The Chinese Connection due to a translation error, Fist of Fury was the second of Bruce Lee’s leading roles in Hong Kong, this time taking his fists to 1900s Shanghai. As Chen Zhen, fictional apprentice of the real life Jingwu School, Lee fights against the rival Japanese dojo after the death of […]

Released a month directly after Kyoto Inferno, Rurouni Kenshin Part III: The Legend Ends continues Kenshin’s journey, the same journey that revived the samurai chambara genre in recent years. As Japan made its shift towards a modern society in the Meiji era, Kenshin fights in promise to his master’s teachings, to wield his sword for […]

Before CCTV cameras and facial recognition, police had to do their surveillance manually, relying on disguises and, if they were lucky, photographic memory to hunt down bad guys and arrest them. Remaking Hong Kong action thriller Eye in the Sky, Cold Eyes followed one such surveillance team– a hardened captain with a rookie with photographic […]

In what was originally intended to be his final film, Hayao Miyazaki is at his most lucid with The Wind Rises. Fluid and luminous, it cleanly moves between a grounded, historical reality and an intuitive, imaginative dreamscape. Here Miyazaki reflects on the process of creation and what it means to be an artist, drawing parallels […]

Director Wong Kar-Wai made this loose sequel to one of the best films ever made, his 2000 classic In the Mood for Love. Much of the story is set around Christmas eve. In the far future, people take a train to the world of 2046, where no sadness or sorrow can be experienced. No one […]

There are plenty of films that tackle the terrible effects of colonialism, but none so bleak as Address Unknown. The title stems from the unsent letters given back to one of the unfortunate mothers that was abandoned by an American soldier, and sadly this isn’t even the worst of what happens in the film. It’s […]

Sometimes it’s hard to relate to foreign movies because of the different cultures, languages and actors. But Miracle in Cell No. 7 transcended the language barriers for me and delivered one of the most touching stories I have ever seen. It’s a Korean film about the intricate yet simple love story between a mentally challenged father […]

I didn’t know anything about the movie before watching it (this was my husband’s pick for ‘one of us picks something that the other knows nothing about’ night). It is Korean, sweet, funny, touching, unique, odd, poignant. I think the fact I knew nothing about the movie when I watched made it even more enjoyable […]

Treeless Mountain is a depressing film. The premise is already sad enough, but it’s more heartbreaking to actually witness the kids slowly reckon with their mom abandoning them, clinging to her lie that she’ll return when their piggy bank gets full, and resorting to grilling grasshoppers for petty change. This mostly works because writer-director So […]

Who doesn’t love a good wedding? It’s a lovely celebration anywhere in the world, but Hum Aapke Hain Koun depicted the Hindu wedding as one of a kind. The film depicts a traditional engagement and wedding ceremony in its most spectacular form, with catchy songs, elaborate sets, and colorful attire that set the standard for […]

Given the Vietnam War, America held certain unsavory stereotypes of their former enemy. These stereotypes inspire the ensemble of Three Seasons. This is a surprising approach, especially for the first American full-length film shot in Vietnam, but filmmaking brothers Tony and Timothy Linh Bui take these stock characters to craft them new, hopeful stories. Through […]

Belladonna of Sadness is a controversial film. Just by reading the synopsis, you can already tell that the film wouldn’t be easy to watch, given the multiple instances of sexual violence inflicted on Jeanne by the baron and the rest of the village. But it’s clear that the violence is meant to feel uncomfortable. This […]

A Werewolf Boy is basically Edward Scissorhands and Beauty and the Beast with wolf transformations and K-drama cinematography. As such, the fantasy romance can be quite predictable. But this doesn’t mean that A Werewolf Boy is a bad movie. The film subtly contemplates the sorrow of having left one’s home country, as Kim Sun-yi has […]

How far are you willing to go to make an action film? Instead of the usual stunt choreography, the protagonists of action crime drama Rough Cut would rather film real on-set fist fights instead. It’s a pretty extreme request in real life, but it proves to be a chilling premise, as the production steadily blurs […]

With the narrative switching back and forth between Long’s imprisonment and his family’s dangerous escape, Journey From the Fall can feel a tad confusing. The structure also dilutes some of the terror of not knowing what happened to their loved ones. But what’s shown is already potent in and of itself, starting with the folktales […]

There are plenty of unique locations captured on film, but it was such a brilliant idea from Jia Zhangke to film in the Beijing World Park for 2004’s The World. It’s almost as if it was made for the film, even though it was established ten years before this film’s release. The theme park became […]

How to Win at Checkers (Every Time) is less a film about checkers and more a coming-of-age drama about brotherly love. Sure, they play the game. Oat gives some rules to play it. But it’s heartbreaking to see that despite knowing these rules, and applying them to the game that is life, Oat and his […]

Written, directed and starring the auteur Stephan Chow, Kung Fu Hustle is a distillation of decades of Hong-Kong Cinema’s greatest export : the martial arts comedy. Full of numerous allusions and witty nods to other greats in the genre, this film is nonetheless entirely fresh and new. Equal parts hilarious and breathtakingly action-packed, Kung Fu […]

Happy Together is a beautifully devastating tale about a gay couple, portrayed by Tony Leung Chiu-Wai and Leslie Cheun, who struggle with maintaining romance and fidelity in their relationship. Despite their efforts, they find the emotional distance growing between them, especially as they leave their home of Hong Kong for Buenos Aires. Filmed and set […]