Asian Horror Flicks

Hands down, for me, is A Tale of Two Sisters. It's not quite as scary as some of the other flicks, but it's still very unsettling, and as an overall film it is much better than any other Asian horror movie (and possibly American horror movie) I've seen to date. Just my op...

Dark Water gave me a bit of the old misty eyes at the end. Personally, those ghostly apparitions in the beginning of Kairo aka Pulse really freaked me out as well as Ju-On: The Grudge. A good solid movie with an interesting twist was Premonition. I felt it was along the lines of Ringu. Infection really wierded me out, especially when you get to the ending, it just has a twilight zone drop off. But my personal favorite was Hideo Nakata's Dark Water, it wasn't too scary, but it just resonated.

Dark Water gave me a bit of the old misty eyes at the end. Personally, those ghostly apparitions in the beginning of Kairo aka Pulse really freaked me out as well as Ju-On: The Grudge. A good solid movie with an interesting twist was Premonition. I felt it was along the lines of Ringu. Infection really wierded me out, especially when you get to the ending, it just has a twilight zone drop off. But my personal favorite was Hideo Nakata's Dark Water, it wasn't too scary, but it just resonated.

Dark Water gave me a bit of the old misty eyes at the end. Personally, those ghostly apparitions in the beginning of Kairo aka Pulse really freaked me out as well as Ju-On: The Grudge. A good solid movie with an interesting twist was Premonition. I felt it was along the lines of Ringu. Infection really wierded me out, especially when you get to the ending, it just has a twilight zone drop off. But my personal favorite was Hideo Nakata's Dark Water, it wasn't too scary, but it just resonated.

I haven't seen a huge amount of them, but I liked Audition. Just sick, and very good concept

"The Eye", hands down. I couldn't sleep the night after I watched it and was thoroughly creeped out for a week after that. It had the kind of images that freak me out the most.

My taste may be a bit unusual though, because I never hear people talk about "The Eye" and other movies like "Ju-On", "Ringu", "Dark Water", and "Audition" didn't do much for me. I liked the last story in "Three Extremes", but not the first two.

I haven't seen several mentioned here; I'll have to check them out

I hated the Eye.
Also, is it me, or are Japanese people scared of children? It seems like a lot of Japanese horror features little girls or boys and that in and of itself is supposed to scare you. The Eye had this going on in a few parts.
Oh, I did like the part in the elevator though.

Recently there have been a rash of murders here--actual children killing their parents for some reason or other (usually the parents are pushing them too hard in school). Quite a few.

Yes, Japanese are terrified of children! (bwa ha ha!)

Children and scorned women with long hair...those seem to be big themes.

I had some problems with Dark Waters and I am not a fan of Shimizu (forgot his name) of Juon fame (I'm still convinced the kid was too cute). But I did like the original Ring, which was based on a real story that I think is actually scarier than the one he wrote!

jbal said:

I hated the Eye.
Also, is it me, or are Japanese people scared of children? It seems like a lot of Japanese horror features little girls or boys and that in and of itself is supposed to scare you. The Eye had this going on in a few parts.
Oh, I did like the part in the elevator though.

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Beats me, since it was Chinese. I loved it though. I thought it was very well done. I loved how you had what felt like the big climax with the suicide attempt, get this false since of security, then bam! Something absolutely devastating happens.

Aubrey said:

Beats me, since it was Chinese. I loved it though. I thought it was very well done. I loved how you had what felt like the big climax with the suicide attempt, get this false since of security, then bam! Something absolutely devastating happens.

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Oops!
Here's something about the Eye that made me laugh. On the cover of the edition of the DVD I have, there is a blurb from some reviewer saying something to the effect of:
"this is the most terrifying movie ever. I was gibbering in fear and that was just from the opening credits..."
Something like that. All I can say is that that person has clearly never seen a horror movie before.

I'll agree there. I think somewhere it also compared it with The Sixth Sense, which I also didn't find scary. I think both were more supernatural suspense than horror. I've only seen two Asian "horror" films thus far and both seemed more suspense than horror. Of course I rather like that. I find those chilling and the typical American fare (like Scream) just gross and occassionally startling. Suspense tends to leave a longer lasting impression with me than the slasher horror films.

If you want a movie that is going to give you horror on a grand scale and shocks - Ichi The Kiler is far better than most.
You will see some amazingly shocking scenes of torture and self abuse, its a long one and your free to watch in badly dubbed cockney or the original soundtrack.
Follow Ichi - a hitman for hire with more than one personality as he gets directions to wipe out various Yakuza and mobsters, he doesn't really understand why he does it and at times he really doesn't want to do it but the film goes on to explain why he does what he does.
He is unique.
He is a freak.
He can empty a room of all men in 5 seconds!
So far only one other asian movie made me cringe in quite this way and that was the Grudge, my collection of world cinema is growing at a steady pace, I've had it with remakes and rebrands and all that guff - get the real deal, get them as they were intended to be seen, straight from the minds of our oriental friends!

Takashi Miike rocks!!!

I think that's what makes Asian horror films better than American ones. They understand the psychological part of it better. I thought Ju-on was good.

I saw The Eye... and it was okay.

I remember one that... well, there was a freaky ghost kid that made blurs on surveillance cameras? A girl gets sucked under covers by a freaky kid after talking to her brother... something. I might get mixing up my movies, but I remember that scene in her very white apartment clearly. But I don't remember what movie it was!

I don't think could do that Ichi movie. Blood, death and violence are fine with me, but even hint at torture and I'm gone!

Since suspense seems to be included in here instead of just horror, just out of curiousity, any chance any of you have seen Death Note yet? I was just curious if it was as intense as the comic. All I've seen of it was the first 10 minutes on YouTube and...it wasn't that impressive.

You can't beat Battle Royale!
Take a group of snotty nosed kids and take them to an island and promise to kill them all bar one - give them guns and pan lids and goggles.

ACE!

As far as ultra-violent Asian action/horror goes, I liked Versus. Fugitive Yakuza / reincarnated samurai battling zombies in the forest. Sounds crazy? It is.

I still dig the psychological stuff more. I think many Asian horror flix have such an appeal because even with their mainstream stuff, they tend to take their story and audience more seriously than much of the American stuff...

I know, like people need everything explaining to them, its a little insulting.
The asian films let people do some of the work too - no easy answers and intrigue is always palpable.

Seen Takashi Miike's PHD pyscho?
OMG - Blood and guts and - OMG!
Now that is some hard stuff to watch, and intelligent too.

Saw “The Eye” -- that one by the Pang Brothers -- and it struck me a bit like their “Bangkok Dangerous” in that it seemed merely average. I liked “The Eye” idea a lot, but the ghost story angle and the attempt to right past wrongs and the Cassandra thing going on, well, just a bit too old hat, for me.

Didn’t much care for “The Grudge”, at least in its American version, so I haven’t bothered checking out the original. Having read Koji Suzuki’s “Ringu” and having also seen the American version of the Japanese movie, I still haven’t managed to check out the original film, though I’m curious to see how much it resembles the book versus the U.S. version. Maybe one of these days. I did get a kick out the actress/contortionist playing the ghost in “The Grudge,” though -- that scene of her coming down the stairs sort of caterpillar like seemed effectively creepy, as did that hallway scene with the video camera watching. Little cat boy just seemed silly, though.

If what I’ve been reading and observing is true, it seems that Asian horror puts more emphasis upon the psychology of the horror than U.S. attempts, which seem to rely overly much upon horrific imagery, which doesn’t achieve the same effect. As to Japanese being afraid of children, maybe such expression is a cultural reaction to the “cult of cute” as one essayist put it, and maybe it’s just the same sort of thing everyone else has been doing for years: take something innocent seeming -- a child -- and make it scary as hell (e.g. “Village of the Damned”, “The Omen”, and so on...)

Although it’s not horror, I heartily recommend Chan-wook Park’s “Oldboy.”

Ooh, Versus sounds like something I'd love. I'm a sucker for samurai and yakuza. I'm surprised they're battling zombies instead of demons. I don't know about live action stuff, but it seems of the Japanese animated stuff, demons are all the rage.

Hey Jackie, is the MPD Psycho movie as good as the manga series? I've been wanting to see it, though a bit hesitant considering it's based on a series that's (IIRC) twenty volumes long. I hope they just pull out events from a manga or two so it doesn't have the cluttered, confusing effect that the X/1999 movie had.

I hope they had geiser girl (the cannibal girl who slit her own throat) and the flowerpot victims in the MPD movie. I loved those parts in the manga.

Jackie Coupe said:

You can't beat Battle Royale!
Take a group of snotty nosed kids and take them to an island and promise to kill them all bar one - give them guns and pan lids and goggles.

ACE!

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Best. Movie. Evah.

Yeah, the sequels never could really emulate the feelings and tone of the first Battle Royakle, the first one is pretty good anime to.

QUALITY!!!

I haven't been able to get my hands on the sequel, though I have heard it's not so good.

They are making a western version of it, due out in 2008. I'm sure they'll screw it up.

I have been very disappointed with them, either the original or remakes, with the exception of the American remake (and Korean original) of The Ring.

The Grudge 2 looks good, though. The first one was so boring...

There seems to be a lot of interesting in Americanization of Asian movies, and not just horror. For example, Departed (with Jack Nicholson, Matt Damon, Leo DiCaprio) is adapted from HK action/thriller Internal Affairs. The Lake House is adapted from Korean film Il Mare.

Ichi is the only movie that ever really squicked me to the point of turning it off.

I'm a major fan of Fudoh--teenagers whack the Yakuza--what's not to love? Especially when their leader is Shosuke Tanihara *squealing fangirl moment goes here*

Versus was cool--Zombies + mob guys.

and While Kitamura's Longinus is not a great movie by any stretch of the imagination it has Atsushi Sakurai who was born to play a brooding vampire type killer. *inserts bigger fangirl moment here & points to avatar*