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Originally Posted by iRewind
For someone who hasn't seen any asian extreme films, I'd recommend to start with Vital. It's easily accessible, but contains some hard-ish scenes, and you will know if you like that kind of style or not. Also, Tsukamoto is a genius.
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I have to admit, I'm quite startled by your choice of
Vital as a very first step into the 'extreme' canon. I personally found it brilliant, but more
art-house than
extreme for my money.
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Of course there's tons of asian horror movies, but I don't count them as extreme cinema.
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*scratches head* How do you work
that out?
We've all had the argument about what constitutes 'extreme' here too many times over the last few years, but are you saying you don't consider anything which produces a drastic emotional response to be
extreme? Horror movies are not extreme?
I'm completely baffled by your concept of what constitutes 'extreme' now, given that you put
Vital in there and not
the entire horror genre
Anyway, that said - I've never done an "Asian primer" either, I liked Alex's list a great deal but I didn't agree with everything on it, so here's mine
1.
Ring. Basic background J-horror staple.
2.
Battle Royale. An anachronism, maybe, given that really there's nothing else like it in the entire output of Asian cinema, but still an unmissable addition.
3.
Kairo. Slow, dense, poetic, atmospheric - ergo, a perfect primer piece of J-Horror.
4.
A Tale of Two Sisters. Likewise, but for K-Horror.
5.
Tetsuo: The Iron Man. Perfect primer piece for cyberpunk.
6.
Uzumaki. Great fun and a great introduction to Junji Ito material.
7.
Suicide Circle. The heaviosity of the piece normally stops me from recommending it to newbs, but how can you leave it out?
8.
Ju-on. The V-Cinema release. Another basic staple of J-Horror.
9.
The Eye. Ditto, for HK-Horror
10. One of the earlier
Guinea Pig movies, probably
He Never Dies, to get an intro to Asian gore.
It's amazing, looking over my list, how very basic and simple most of my choices are, but I would think that 90% of people here have seen all of those titles (possibly with the exception of
Guinea Pig, as that might be construed as a specialist taste), which means they have some classic and essential quality that makes them highly recommendable
