[quote]Steel Nation wrote:
[quote]atypical1 wrote:
Steel, why do you have a hard time with foreign movies? They make subtitles you know…lol.
james[/quote]
I find certain languages somewhat comical to listen to, and it breaks the tension for me. It really depends on the type of movie though. I loved The Raid: Redemption and Ong Bak because the dialogue was pretty limited in both of those. In the original Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, all of the dialogue in key scenes really destroyed the “thriller” aspect of it, because I think the Swedish language sounds hysterical.
I also find that a great number of foreign movies have an odd, unfamiliar “feel” to them (I’m not a film guy, so I don’t really know any other way to describe it). Hell, it’s almost like they were made in another country…but seriously it makes it hard for me to immerse myself in the story.
I will give Old Boy a shot though, because the Korean language isn’t one that I find particularly humorous. But I worry that the feel will be off-putting in some way. If that is the case then I won’t have a long time to wait for the American remake.[/quote]
I was going to suggest an action-thriller called Headhunters (Hodejegerne) but I guess that’s out, oh boo. (It’s a really, really good one too).
Foreign movies do have a different aura surrounding them indeed, whether it be classy French films of old or dark and honour-dependent Asian films, or even kind of moody Belgian dramas.
They tend to reflect the history of the country and all of it’s most important themes and events, Asia having a big dependency on honour, loyalty and familial bonds; Germany make an inordinate amount of WWII movies to show it’s horrors and their disgust for the events; France is full of lovely romances, class and fashion; Britain has a strong interest in movies concerning gang warfare and class hierarchy, from the “Aristocracy” to the council-housed proletariat; and finally the USA has it’s base on full blown acts of freedom, independent thought and gloriously sticking it to the man, or at least that’s my basic interpretation of the themes of different nations/continents and such.
It just seems that movies from a certain country tend to reflect on the personality of the country and how it has grown to be over time, which makes it a little hard to understand with no experience of the countries or it’s full history, hell I’m sure I still don’t fully understand Asian films.
There are a lot of themes of disgust and revenge in Oldboy that perhaps aren’t the most outwardly pleasing, and because of the Asian shtick it can seem a little strange, but if you can will yourself past all that it’s incredibly good.
