Must Watch : a Bittersweet Life

[WrikaWrek]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0456912/


So another must watch, i gotta say that i've watched this movie 3 times before, and i'm gonna watch it again just now, but before i started i thought i would post something here, maybe some of you haven't seen this gig.

Forget any kind of Quentin Tarantino comparisons or whatever, this movie for me was really its own distinct thing. It's not like i'm in love with Korean cinema, although i would like to see other good Korean movies in the same vein, but unfortunately recommendations are hard to come by on that front.

It's not an action movie, although it does have action, some of it pretty damn good. What it is, is, a very visually gripping movie, with some really awesome characters, some ouch violence, a movie that has a slow pace, but not a boring one.

I don't like to spoil story, so just go in knowing that it's about this dude that works for the local mob, and go from there, because i went into this movie like that, i played Lost Planet, and people said it was the dude from Bittersweet, and it was a great movie, and i checked the RT and ordered it from Amazon.

So yeah, really, if you can, watch this movie, it's pretty gud.

[HyperZoneWasAwesome]

I quite agree.  I'm stoked for the stateside release of the director's latest film, The Good, The Bad, and the Weird, a Western which reunites him with Lee Byung-Hun, and Song Kang-Ho (Memories of Murder, The Host).  Its got some really good notices from the festival circuit but will likely only get the minuscule theatrical push that pretty much every IFC distributed flick gets.



But yeah, A Bittersweet Life, pretty dang awesome.  Fucking amazing score, cinematography, and I loved, loved, loved the occasional pitch-black humor in it.  Many Korean films do that who "tonal roller coaster" thing, but only the good ones do it well.  Other K-flicks I can safely recommend would be J.S.A. and Memories of Murder, which both have a similar mix of entertaining and well made cinema with some geniunely affecting moments that never feel manufactured.

fun fact: the director of A Bittersweet Life also made the film Takashi Miike remade as The Happiness of the Katakuris (The Quiet Family, as of yet unseen by me).

[CaptainCommando]

Not nearly as awesome as Bittersweet Life, but I liked Chingu quite a bit.

For excellent Korean cinema, go watch the entire Vengeance trilogy.  There's also Save the Green Planet, which seems goofy at first - but it's surprisingly gutwrenching when the time comes.

[WrikaWrek]

Just finished. Yup, still love it.

Thanks for some of the recommendations, already saw Oldboy, but will be checking out the rest, especially J.S.A. and Memories of Murder, they sound gud.

[Tauntaun]

Gonna have to check that out, thanks man.