Genre: Foreign Movies
Writing on cinema from beyond the English-speaking world — the films, traditions, and voices that tell their stories in other tongues.
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Police Story (1985)
Jackie Chan's 1985 Hong Kong action film. He directed, choreographed, and did his own stunts. The mall finale is among the great unfaked action sequences. -
A Bittersweet Life (2005)
Kim Jee-woon's 2005 Korean crime drama. Lee Byung-hun as a hotel enforcer one mistake from death. Compressed, controlled, lethal. -
I Saw the Devil (2010)
Kim Jee-woon's 2010 extreme revenge thriller. Lee Byung-hun as the cop, Choi Min-sik as the killer. Where the genre ends. Not for casual viewing. -
The Wailing (2016)
Na Hong-jin's 2016 Korean rural-horror. A village cop investigates a stranger. Three hours of ambiguity. Earns its length. -
Train to Busan (2016)
Yeon Sang-ho's 2016 Korean zombie film. The whole movie happens on one train. The first zombie film in a decade to feel necessary. -
Hard Boiled (1992)
John Woo's 1992 Hong Kong action film. Chow Yun-fat and Tony Leung. The hospital sequence that John Wick choreography traces back to. -
The Killer (1989)
John Woo's 1989 Hong Kong heroic bloodshed film. Chow Yun-fat as a hitman trying to retire. The film Tarantino spent a decade trying to remake. -
Infernal Affairs (2002)
Lau and Mak's 2002 Hong Kong crime thriller. Two moles on opposite sides. The film Scorsese remade as The Departed. Often called the better version. -
Memories of Murder (2003)
Bong Joon-ho's 2003 procedural. Korean cops hunt a serial killer in the 1980s. Based on the real Hwaseong murders. Pairs with Zodiac. -
Oldboy (2013)
Spike Lee's 2013 remake of Park Chan-wook's Korean original. Josh Brolin and Sharlto Copley. Cleaner and more straightforward than the 2003 version.