Bizarre girls and old boys - korean kraze

My current obsession with korean movies started with some very different films: The actionthrillers SHIRI,NOWHERE TO HIDE and the romantic comedy MY SASSY GIRL.
Here is a list with them and my other korean favorites (in no particular order).

Thriller
SHIRI - The first korean thriller I saw, and it showed me that Hollywood and Hong Kong had no monopoly on exciting action
NOWHERE TO HIDE - A very exciting and fast cops-and-robbers flick, that left me on the edge of my seat for most of the running time. Very stylish filmed.
JSA / OLD BOY / SYMPATHY FOR MRS. VENGEANCE - Everything by Park Chan-wook is fine with me, but I loved JSA the most. Song Kang-Ho (star of THE HOST) is very strong here - but so are all the actors.

Comedies/Romances
MY SASSY GIRL - This one started a whole genre in Korea - and my love for romantic comedies (romcoms for short). This sort of amour fou is in turns sweet, funny, melodramatic, bizarre und completely enjoyable.
THE HARMONIUM IN MY MEMORY - A 10 year old film with Jeon Do-Yeon, who just won "Best Actress" in Cannes. After seeing this film and MY MOTHER THE MERMAID I became a fan of Jeon.
MY WIFE IS A GANGSTER - Funny with great action scenes and a clever script. There is a plot twist near the end that I don't care for much, but altoghether one of the best korean gangster-comedies. (The two sequels are quite a bit weaker)
IL MARE - Was remade as THE LAKE HOUSE with Sandra Bullock and master-thespian Keanu Reeves, but the original is so much better. Very romantic and well written, and the fantastic element is well integrated.
ALL FOR LOVE - I'm sucker for LOVE ACTUALLY, and this is a similar but, in my mind, superior film.
ATTACK THE GAS STATION - If Tarantino were korean and in a very playful mood...
TWO COPS 1 + 2 - Not your typical buddy-movies. The first is with Ahn Sung-Kee and Park Joong-hoon (two of my favorite actors) and has some biting humor. The second still has Park and more humor than satire.

Horror
MEMENTO MORI - Best of the "Whispering Corridors" movies
A TALE OF TWO SISTERS - Great, disturbing horrorthriller
R-POINT - Cool mix of war movie and horror
SAVE THE GREEN PLANET - Bizarre and often spine-tingling

That's it - my favorite korean movies. I'm sure i mist some important ones, but what the heck. And then there are some, that probably would be in the list, if had seen them yet. I have, for instance, high hopes for KING AND THE CLOWN, I'M A CYBORG, BUT THAT'S OK and THIS CHARMING GIRL.
I'll let you know how I liked them, as soon as I had time to see them.

And so it begins…

Hi,
if you follow this blog you'll know what one specific german male in his 40s likes to watch and read. You'll find him quite opinionated and frank in his judgments, I think.
I hope that some day there will be a lot of comments on enjoyable movies of all possible genres (well, perhaps not so many about westerns), and passionate rants about bad movies. What I consider to be bad, you'll have to find out by yourselves – it won't necessarily conform with the critics or the mainstream of movie fans.
There probably won't be many long reviews, and my comments won't always be very up to date. I intend this blog to show my actual viewing history, so if I discover a movie that's when I'll write about it, may it be 20 years old or just released.

The first few posts will consist of movies I care for a lot and should give you an idea what you can expect here. After that I'll mainly stick to movies and books that I just watched/read. At least, that's the plan…

Ah, yes: and you'll probably find a lot of funny english, since I understand the language much better than I write in it.

Right-o, lets have some fun!