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-   -   The Foreign (non-English) Movies thread (no spoilers please) (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/shifting-gears/211590-foreign-non-english-movies-thread-no-spoilers-please.html)

Lately, I have started figuring out excellent movie options outside the English diaspora with some fantastic options - some movies even decades old. While there are gems that became world-wide popular (e.g. City of God, Old Boy, etc), there's a treasure trove of movies across each genre, across each country/continent! I was pleasantly surprised that we didn't have a thread dedicated to that. Most posts on such movies would land up in the English movie thread.

So here are a few personal 'bests' that I always have in my hard drive and have watched several times.

Elite Squad, (& the sequel) Elite Squad - The Enemy Within : 4.5 / 5 (Brazilian)
A brilliant semi-fictional movie series about the fight between the drug lords and the elite BOPE squad; both the movies show a lot of grit and character and seemingly a storyline that we can easily comprehend. Fast-paced and action-packed! Definitely worth a back-to-back watch! The main character is more well-known thanks to the much later released, award winning and highly popular Netflix series, Narcos.

The Man From Nowhere : 4 / 5 (Korean)
A brilliant action-packed Korean movie, which unfortunately we will find too familiar thanks to the idiotic copy made by John Abraham. Still that movie does absolutely no justice to the original Korean movie. The main lead does so well by just his facial expressions, and the chemistry between the villain characters is perfect; something that is rarely seen in current movies

T-34 : 4 / 5 (Russian)
Technically, this is a pure-play WW2 war movie. But that's just the outer cover. What you get is a well-made Bollywood masala - a love story, a underdog beating all the impossible odds, a hero supported by a set of loyal wards who are happy to do at his bidding, and a villain who prefers to go one-on-one with the hero just for ego-sakes instead of using his entire army to wipe the hero out. Excellent acting, some very good tank fight scenes and a fast paced movie throughout!

The Wandering Earth : 3 / 5 (Chinese)
We are so used to seeing Hollywood do all the cool sci-fi stuff; it's a pleasant surprise when one gets to see sci-fi movies by other countries, and one that is very well done. Although this became popular world-wide thanks to Netflix, but even before that, this movie was getting a lot of eyeballs due to the fact that the team focused on the world-saving-the-world storyline rather than making another superhero or a politically-oriented (goChina!) movie.

If you haven't yet seen this, hit Netflix and give it a watch.


Other mentions
Isoroku Yamamoto the Commander-in-Chief of the Combined Fleet : 5 / 5 (Japanese)
Special Forces : 3 / 5 (French)
The Suspect : 3.5 / 5 (Korean)
I Saw The Devil : 3 / 5 (Korean)

Hope to hear about some great movies :)

P.s. These are movies that make way more sense to watch in the original language with subtitles (than a dubbed one)

Mostly I love Japanese movies, not to mention why

Rashomon
Ladri di biciclette aka Bicycle Thieves
Kwaidan
La vita è bella aka Life is Beautiful
Shichinin no samurai aka Seven Samurai
Yojimbo is the original movie from which Clint Eastwood made A Fistful of Dollars


Last but not the least, though an US movie, the language is native American - Apocalypto

Elite Squad looks good. Thanks for the recommendation.

Man from nowhere was good. was recommended to me by google after searching for movies similar to the Raid series. That still is the best in my book when it comes to martial arts.

Watch Chocolate as well for some insane martial art fights.

Wandering Earth was visually stunning but the two lead actors kept getting on my nerves :D

One from me - Run Lola Run

My List:

1. The exterminating angel - Louis brunnel - Spanish.
2. Children of heaven - Iranian.
3. Darkness in Tallinn - Estonian ( i believe ).
4. Amelie - Luc Besson - French
5. 8 1/2 - Fedrico Felini - Italian
6. Battle of Algiers - Italian / French ( I think ).
7. Der Himmel Ueber Berlin - German.
8. Roshomon - Akira Kurasawa - Japanese.
9. The seventh seal - Ingmar Bergman - Swedish.
10. Persona - Ingmar Bergman - Swedish.
11. Seven samurai - Akira kurasawa - Original Japanese version.
12. Der leben der anderen - German
13. Hannabi - Takeshi Kitano - Japanese.

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The list is incomplete but these are ones that comes to my mind. By the way, non English must mean hindi/regional languages too right?.

Then add "Jane bhi do yaaron" as one of the eternal favorites :D ( i am pretending that i did not read the word "Foreign" )

If you want to know about the indian masters , than Satyajith ray would be the starting point.

Nopes - we have the threads for that (Hindi / Regional). This is for foreign language movies other than English for which there's a pretty active thread.

Guys,
If you can, I'd suggest giving a bit of detail/review as we do on the other movie review threads, at least for the ones that we really liked/enjoyed or have seen most recently. Most folks would just skip a list of movies but a short 2-3 line/para write-up gets' the attention for sure :)

Then you should also watch Sanjuro, the next part.

Some of the best Samurai movies are listed here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5OeN123S2k

I haven't seen a lot of non-American foreign movies but the below came very highly recommended and lived up to their reputation.

1) A Separation (Iranian): a very touching story of an Iranian family caught in the immigrate vs. stay back to look after parents dilemma.

2) The Intouchables (French): a heart-warming story of an immigrant, under the social welfare scheme, and a disabled upper-class nobleman who he has to take care of.

3) The Invisible Guest (Spanish): courtesy Badla

My List:

Without spoiling :

1. The exterminating angel - Louis brunnel - Spanish.

B/W . Its a psychological movie about the mental blocks of people to move away from traditions.

2. Children of heaven - Iranian.

A Heart warming tale about a impoverished brother and sister. A slice of life in iran which is no different from us.

3. Darkness in Tallinn - Estonian ( i believe ).

A pulsating thriller. A tycon plans to loot gold from the central bank of a newly formed republic. Watch till the end to see the transformation. " Toivo is dead".;)

4. Amelie - Luc Besson - French

A romantic comedy about a girl and a fantasy world that she lives. A must watch. I would say start with this. I have seen it 4-5 times but never get tired.

5. 8 1/2 - Fedrico Felini - Italian

A cinematographers manual. Story about a director with a creative block.

6. Battle of Algiers - Italian / French ( I think ).

An account of the french occupation of algeria.

7. Der Himmel Ueber Berlin - German.

Tale of two angles. One becomes a human.

8. Roshomon - Akira Kurasawa - Japanese.

Pulp fiction predecessor (though not in style ). Story is told in 4 narrations.

9. The seventh seal - Ingmar Bergman - Swedish.

Set in medieval era, a story of knight who returns to disappointment and hope.

10. Persona - Ingmar Bergman - Swedish.

An actress looses her voice. See the rest yourself :uncontrol

11. Seven samurai - Akira kurasawa - Original Japanese version.

Same as the English version except better.

12. Der leben der anderen - German

Set in east germany. A single nation under surveillance.

13. Hannabi - Takeshi Kitano - Japanese.

A police officers tale and struggle with depression. See till the last. Music is melodious.

There is a thread
https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/shift...re-cinema.html

which focuses more on movies from the likes of Luis Brunnel, Bergman et al

Glad to see these guys get a mention here

That's a fantastic recommendation Sir. I'm stumbling for words to explain about the movie. I think we have to watch to understand the thrilling part of it. First time a sequel movie is fantastic than its predecessor, atleast, that I've come across.

I watched it here in a Shanghai cinema with English subtitles. A Chinese colleague recommended it heavily. Even she couldn't believe that they (Chinese) could make such a high tech. movie.

Although the concept is nice, I found the movie unnecessarily pulled in middle. A 20 minutes shorter version would have been great. Nevertheless it's worth a watch.

I think that movie was remade ( or should i say copied) into telugu starring nagarjuna , karthi and tamannah and was set in.......wait for it....PARIS!!


BTW add two more the original list.

14. Le femme nikita -Luc besson - French : A girl is sucked into a world of crime. The Govt recruits her as an assassin. A personal favorite.

15. Tzemeti (13) - Georgian / French : Thriller with a most unusual plot. It was remade in english with Jason Satnam (mechanic fame). I do prefer the original.

Few from my side:

The Handmaiden (2016)
The Secret in Their Eyes (2009)
The Invisible Guest (2016)
The Body (2012)
A Separation (2011)

:OT Was also remade in Hollywood with Bryan Canston and Kevin Hart.

Some of the martial arts movies i can recommend:

1) The Raid: Redemption (2011)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1899353/

Insane fight scenes with some Mortal Kombat style finishers

2) The Raid 2 (2014)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2265171/?ref_=tt_sims_tt

While not as good as the first one, it still is good!

3) Merantau (2009)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1368116/

The movie that started Iko into the world of action mania. Some real hard hitting action scenes

4) The Night Comes For us (2018)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6116856/

Avoid if you have can't stand the sight of blood. This action movie blurred the lines between action and gore with the balance tipping towards the latter

5) Chocolate (2008)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1183252/

Silly premise but the action scenes...oh boy, the action scenes were a joy to behold :)

6) The Ip Man Series and most of the Donnie Yen movies are also good for action buffs.