Arirang (South Korea, 2011)

In 2008, director and screenwriter Kim Ki-duk (3-Iron, Samaritan Girl) went through very hard times that were partially caused by an incident that happened on the set of his film Dream, where an actress almost died. After this, Kim locked himself up in a shack for three years to deal with his anxiety and depression. He also recorded himself speaking his thoughts, and showed how he lived his secluded life up in the mountains.

When watching Arirang, you really feel like a fly on the wall. It has such unbelievable presence to it, it's so honest and real that it's almost embarrassing. Kim Ki-duk is one of my favorite directors, and it was quite something to see him watch my favorite movie of his (Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter ... and Spring). Arirang is Kim when he opens up, when he breaks down and when he tries to get back up.

Genre: Documentary/Drama

Tokyo Drifter (Japan, 1966)

Tetsuya "Phoenix Tetsu" Hondo is a member of a recently deactivated Yakuza gang. His boss, to whom he holds absolute loyalty, Kurata, has given up the life of crime for himself and his syndicate. Otsuka, a rival gang boss, attempts to recruit Tetsu into his organization, but is turned down. After failing, Otsuka sends an assassin to neutralize Tetsu, fearing he will interfere with a real estate scam. Looking to profit from the scheme himself and fearing that his group is threatened by his presence, Kurata asks Tetsu to leave and live the life of a drifter.

Tokyo Drifter has some seriously bizarre cinematography, it's even so out there, that Nikkatsu the film studio tried to get director Seijun Suzuki to tone down his visual style. To no avail, it turned out. The film oozes attitude and Tetsuya, the main character, almost outshines everyone else when it comes to being cool. He's like a delinquent James Bond.

Genre: Crime/Drama

Dream Home (Hong Kong, 2010)

A woman will go to whatever lengths necessary to obtain her dream home with a view of the sea. This includes driving down the property value and decreasing the occupancy rate by killing her potential neighbors.

Dream Home is a dark slasher flick with a good plot to back it up. It goes back and forth between the past and present to show how desperate our main character becomes, and tells a story that spans almost her whole life; from the dreams of a young and innocent girl, to the psychotic killings of her older self. One of the death scenes is quite horrifying. The road to the perfect apartment is covered with blood. 

Genre: Horror/Thriller

Fish Story (Japan, 2009)

In the year 2012 a comet approaches earth, threatening to end civilization when it impacts. On the streets of Japan, a single music store remains open, its proprietor insisting to his customers that the world is not coming to an end. He plays a forgotten song recorded by an obscure band 37 years ago, and insists that somehow, this song will save the world.

Fish Story is a funny and kind of strange film. A song that will save the world? How? Well, I guess you just have to see the film to find out. It follows several different characters down their own storyline, and binds them together in a great way. It's a film that'll put you in a good mood, and that's the kind of film you want.

Genre: Drama/Comedy

The Guinea Pig: Mermaid in a Manhole (Japan, 1988)

An artist who is trying to cope with the recent death of his wife. One day while visiting the sewers beneath the streets of Okinawa, he comes across a mermaid that he had once met as a child, when the sewers used to be a large river. She is now stranded, stuck in the sewers. He sits down to paint her, but soon she starts crying in agony. That is when the painter notices that she has boils growing all over her body, due to being stuck in the sewers for a long length of time and contracted infections. 

The Guinea Pig film series is a splatter fest in the true sense of the word, and over the years it has attracted a lot of attention due to the surrounding controversies (the film makers had to go to court and show people that they're actually weren't torturing anyone for real). Mermaid in a Manhole is the series fourth entry, and the one I found was the "best". All the films are basically an excuse to show a bloodbath for about 50 minutes, but Mermaid features more of a disgusting infection rather than being all out torture porn like the others. Low-budget and grisly, that's Guinea Pig. 

Genre: Horror

Cold Eyes (South Korea, 2013)

Ha Yoon-joo becomes the newest member to join a unit within the Korean Police Forces Special Crime Department that specializes in surveillance activities on high profile criminals. She teams up with Chief Hwang, the veteran leader of the unit, and tries to track down James, the cold-eyed leader of an armed robbery organization.

The balanced mix of suspense, action and humor makes Cold Eyes a given hit. It doesn't think outside of the thriller box, but still is a great and exciting film. 

Genre: Action/Crime

A World Without Thieves (China, 2004)

Sha Gen, a naïve village boy working as construction worker in Tibet, is returning home to get married. Refusing to believe that thieves exist in the world, Sha Gen insists on carrying his five years of savings worth ¥60,000 with him rather than use remittance. As such, he has attracted the attention of Wang Bo and Wang Li, who are lovers as well as highly skilled thieves. Wang Bo wants to steal the money as a last hit to end their career, but Wang Li, pregnant with their child and moved by Sha Gen's innocence, decides to protect the boy. The situation is further complicated when a small gang of thieves boards the train.

A World Without Thieves takes places almost entirely on a train, which make sort of a mini-heist movie, where a group of thieves and robbers all try to get their hands on a poor boys savings. Will any of them succeed?

Genre: Action/Crime/Drama

The Banquet (China, 2006)

It is the end of the Tang Dynasty and China is divided. The Crown Prince, Wu Luan, is deeply in love with the noblewoman Little Wan. However, his father, the Emperor, decides to marry Little Wan. Wu Luan, deeply hurt, flees to a remote theatre to study the arts of music and dance. Shortly after Wu Luan's departure, the Emperor is murdered by his brother, Li. The film begins as Empress Wan sends messengers to the theatre, informing Wu Luan that the Emperor has died, and that his uncle will succeed the throne. Unknown to Wan, the usurping Emperor Li has already dispatched riders to assassinate Wu Luan.

The Banquet (a.k.a. Legend of the Black Scorpion) is a poetically beautiful and visually fantastic film. It runs in the same vein as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), but with a plot that's loosely based on Shakespeare's Hamlet. Expect grandiose storytelling and masterful fighting scenes.

Genre: Action/Drama

Death Water (Japan, 2006)

Newspaper correspondent Kyoko Togakure visits a nursing home in the outskirts of Tokyo. She finds the dead body of a resident. It was an apparent suicide. He's holding a piece of paper with the mystifying word "Death Water" written on it. Nearby are blood-stained scissors, and his eyes are squashed. She has no idea that this death is just the beginning of a horrendous nightmare

Death Water isn't the kind of horror where there's a jump scare every ten minutes, nor is it the kind where girls with long black hair comes after you. Instead, it's a rather slow-paced mystery surrounding a bizarre murder case that somehow involves water. It has decent actors and doesn't feel too long if you're up for a good thriller and doesn't expect to be bombarded with gore or murdering ghosts.

Genre: Horror/Mystery

Vital (Japan, 2004)

Hiroshi wakes up in a hospital room and realizes that he was in a serious car accident that caused the death of his girlfriend, Ryoko, as well as the loss of his memory. While trying to regain his memory, one of the first clues that Hiroshi finds are his old medical textbooks that he studied prior to his accident. This gives him a renewed purpose in life and he delves forward into his medical school studies. During a 4-month period, in which his class dissects human cadavers, Hiroshi realizes that the body that he is dissecting is the body of his former girlfriend, Ryoko, which causes more of Hiroshi’s memory to return.

Vital is a far cry from Shinya Tsukamoto's earlier films such as Tetsuo (1989) and Tokyo Fist (1995). Gone is the crazy camera-work, and the film doesn't go absolutely nuts as those ones, it just feels more mature and emotionally engaging. 

Genre: Drama

Nightmare Detective 2 (Japan, 2008)

Still haunted by his unwanted abilities, which allows him to enter other people’s dreams, and memories of his mother dying when he was a child, Kyoichi Kagenuma contemplates suicide while slowly drowns in his world of misery. Yukie Mashiro, having heard rumours about Kagenuma's extraordinary abilities, visits his home to beg for his help. She tells him she suffers from nightly nightmares that are getting scarier. The murderous ghost in the dreams has already killed two of her friends and she's afraid she's the next to die.

Nightmare Detective 2 is directed by Shinya Tsukamoto, and even though he already has an impressive filmography, this movie stands out as one of his best. Probably because it doesn't go off in any crazy direction, and just stays on path the whole way and tells a interesting story. One of his more mainstream films, you could say.

Genre: Drama/Horror

R-Point (South Korea, 2004)

In 1972, the South Korean base in Nah-Trang, Vietnam, receives a radio transmission from a missing platoon presumed dead. The high-command assigns the veteran and decorated Lieutenant Choi Tae-in to lead a squad with eight other soldiers and rescue the missing soldiers from the R-Point. When they arrive in the location, they find a tombstone telling that one hundred years ago, Chinese killed Vietnamese, dropped them in a lake and built a temple over the place, being a sacred location to the Vietnamese. While chasing the missing soldiers, weird things happen with the rescue team.

What would happen if you took a haunting ghost story, and placed it right in the middle of the Vietnam War? You'd get R-Point. Throw in a large amount paranoia, add some frightening visions of dead bodies and you got yourself a winner. 

Genre: Horror/Mystery

Meat Grinder (Thailand, 2009)

Buss is a disturbed woman who hears voices in her head and is tormented by visions. Having been taught some pretty dubious and unconventional food preparation and cooking skills by her mother, she decides to open up a noodle stall, using the body of a man left over from a riot as the main ingredient. Soon enough, the customers are turning up in droves for her delicious meals, and life is starting to look good for her. However, her past comes back to haunt her, and as her mental state breaks down, yet more people end up on the chopping block.

Meat Grinder is a horror film where the visual presentation is a cut above the rest, and we're treated to some really beautifully shot scenes and use of colors. Sure it's also nasty with some dismemberment and bloody killings, but it's nice to see a horror film where the camera work is as interesting as the gore.

Genre: Horror

Living Death (South Korea, 2009)

A college student named Hee-jin returns home when her 14-year-old sister So-jin goes missing. Her mother, a fanatic churchgoer, resorts to prayer and refuses to work with the lazy police to find So-jin. Meanwhile, a neighbor commits suicide and leaves a will for So-jin, and Hee-jin hears rumors that her sister had been possessed. The whereabouts of So-jin become increasingly elusive and the dead neighbor begins appearing in Hee-jin's dreams.

Living Death (a.k.a. Possessed) is a fantastic thriller that barely has any flaws at all. It delivers an eerie and ghostly atmosphere, plays on the more subtle horror strings rather than just gory shock value, and in the end, just proves to be exactly what you want when you're tired of the same horror formula being repeated over and over again. 

Genre: Horror/Mystery/Thriller

Nobody's Daughter (South Korea, 2013)

University student Hae-Won wants to break up with Teacher Sung-Joon. They have had a secret relationship. Hae-Won meets her mother, who is going to emigrate to Canada tomorrow. After meeting her mother, Hae-Won feels depressed and she decides to meet Sung-Joon for the first time in a long while. On that day, Hae-Won and Sung-Joon happen to meet students at a restaurant who study the same major and their relationship becomes known to others.

If you're somewhat fed up with movies that features an epic storyline, tons of characters and a billion dollar budget, Nobody's Daughter will do wonders. It's an indie film which revolves around a woman who seeks consolation in relationships, but the men in her life doesn't necessarily make it easier for her. A small, good drama with believable actors.

Genre: Drama