PRESENTING: Movie Forums' Top 100 Movies, Starring You!

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It certainly looks like a middle finger. I'm going to go ahead and guess it's an index finger though
 
Blade Runner is the least of the three, no matter what they are. Go ahead and get confused now...
 
I would be wary of calling Tsai 'very Japanese' and 'very Ozu'. You have contradicted yourself, as i'm not sure Ozu is 'very Japanese' and further to that contradiction, although Ozu rarely moves the camera, he works in domestic grids and close-ups. I scarcely recall anything in Tsai's canon tantamount to Ozu, aesthetically or even thematically. You would never catch Ozu resting for seven minutes on a lone woman crying for instance, like Tsai did in Vive L'Amour.



Now Hou is someone who has been bombarded with comparisons to Ozu and rightfully so. Cafe Lumiere is a straight-up homage to Ozu, specifically Tokyo Story. While I am unsure Hou's techniques ever 'come alive', he is a splendid, splendid fimmaker who like Tsai has struggled off the festival circuit.

And check out Edward Yang. We're talking favourites here so only superlatives will do, but I run out of them for A Brighter Summer's Day and Yi Yi.



I'm with you here. An extremely promising filmmaker - not one who has done anywhere near enough to be a favourite - but still, Love Exposure was a blast.



Ratanaruang's Invisible Waves dissapointed me but Last Life in the Universe was an interesting, if unspectacular effort. As for recent Palme d'Or winner Weerasethakul, his Syndromes and a Century was enigmatic and beautiful but Tropical Malady - another that splits in two, this time (partially) interweaving a gay romance with some folkloric jibber-jabber about shapeshifting - passed me by with a whimper.



You must. Naruse and Mizoguchi are generally thought of to be more 'Japanese' than Ozu and Kurosawa (whatever that means; there is certainly room to manoeuvre here), but cultural criticism aside, and shouldn't it be just, I can't think of many other filmmakers i'd rather be around.
 
It might be hard or stereotypical to ever pin down what Japanese means, but for some reason I always think of Ozu's quiet style and familial subject matter.

Well Tsai = super long takes if you want to distill him down. I get the same minimalist vibe. Maybe it would be safer to compare it to Hou's Cafe Lumeire, which had some long takes, but not Tsai level.

Yes, I've seen Yi Yi and it is wonderful. I have yet to check out more Yang.
 
Now that I'm reading more on Ozu, it's kind of clear how he's not really much of anything but a cinematic genius in the universal sense. Though, I think Tsai develops similarly to Ozu in an analogous sort of way. His camera gets more static for one. He has much less films and no films in the silent era, but let's think about that last statement, eh?

About Mizoguchi, I think I did see his version of The 47 Ronin at one point, but you can never be sure about that story since there're so many versions. It may have been Kon Ichikawa. I just don't even remember it much.

And I just "obtained" Mizoguchi's Osaka Elegy. Someone told me that it was the place to start. I won't wait for confirmation on this.
 
The Terrorizer is my favourite, so far.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091355/

Going to check out Love Exposure, although I'm not too sure when as it's quite lengthy. And if we're talking somewhat recent Japanese films I'd recommend these two:

United Red Army (2007, Koji Wakamatsu)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0923869/

Eureka (2000, Shinji Aoyama)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0243889/
 
I've not seen any of those, Lime. Thanks for the recs. Yang only has a few films, but they seem to be hard to find besides Yi Yi.

Love Exposure flies by. You'll sit down to watch the first 30 mins and get sucked in.
 
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