Inventive film making

I really wish people would stop putting down American movies, I love Korean movies, but how many come out a year, how many of those are noteworthy. Very few movies done in Korea couldn't be done somewhere else, that's just the law of averages. The very nature of the Korean film industry would not permit a 200 million dollar movie so JSA, My Sassy Girl, STGP. and even Attack the Gas Station are just movies that are more or less a product of the combination of American film influence and budget capacity. In five years Korean movies will start to seem trite just like american movies, look at Japan.

I agree with the first poster. Film-making is about originality, inventiveness and style. Asian cinema is amazing and really innovative I'm really getting into it more and more all the time.

Mainstream Hollywood just seems so fake and *beep* I don't relate to what they produce.

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To me, Asian films (and foreign films in general) are typically more original, innovative, and altogether interesting than most American films simply because of the American mass culture. When a typical conformist American goes to see a "Hollywood" film, he expects the film to have a certain degree of acessability and "star power." If the movie he watches features a popular cultural icon such as Tom Cruise, he automatically judges it as a "Tom Cruise" movie, and expects it to fall within the limits of "Tom Cruise's" typecast persona (no offense to him, as I quite enjoyed "Vanilla Sky," which was, of course, a remake of a FOREIGN FILM, "Abre Los Ojos." Which makes no difference anyway, as most Americans were too stupid to understand either one). Most modern American films are so caught up in a web of "Hollywood" cliches, stereotypes, harsh public mass-media scrutiny and the production company's driving urge to create money-makers that they fall blissfully short of the creativity mark set by foreign films. The concept also works with music. I'm not automatically dismissing all American films here, of course. Filmakers such as Terry Gilliam ("Brazil" is an all-time fave), Quentin Tarentino, and the Coen Brothers have suceeded in creating some of the most unconventionally excellent films of all time, not to mention some genuinely great mainstream films. It's the endless string of comic-book/ video game remakes, cheesy summer romance-comedies and that anti-Semetic rascist money-grubbing capitalist exploitationalist mind-controling sadist Walt Disney that I'm griping about. "Hitch," "Must Love Dogs," "Fantastic Four," "Gigli," "National Treasure," "Kangaroo Jack," "Yours, Mine and Ours," ect...

Now, take a film like "Green Planet." It's a comedic, gory and slightly romantic Sci-fi drama about an insane meth-addled UFO-crazy megalomaniac who, along with his dangerously unattractive tightrope-walking girlfriend, kidnap the CEO of a chemical company under the (accurate) assumption that he is an alien from the galaxy of Andromeda who has come here to destroy the Earth, and torture him in his basement with menthol rub. Unconventional? Of course. Original? Yeah. I simply do not understand why some people believe that this film is derivative of anything, much less inferior to "Paycheck" or "X-Men." The acting is incredible, and all the more rewarding without the burden of known actors, the cinematography is unique and highly effective and it accomplishes the fusion of many genres with greater uniqueness and power than a Hollywood movie could accomplish with one. And, of course, there are countless other examples of unconventional Asian films beating the @#*% out of American Box-office smashes in terms of originality and inventiveness, such as "Sympathy for Mr. Vengance" (The lead character here is a deaf mute who does not speak once throughout the entire film, and the entire plot is based around a freelance crooked organ-supplying organization's mugging and theft of his kidney. Hmmm... Do you think we can get Michael Bay to direct?),"Oldboy," "Ichi the Killer," "Audition," "Three Extremes," "Battle Royale," "Suicide Club," "Attack the Gas Station," "The Happiness of the Katakuris," yada, yada, yada.
Do us all a favor: If you are an American conformist who likes to watch Dennis Quaid and Joan Cussak flicks with your equally flock-like friends, don't bother to judge inventive, artistic and unique films which actually add something to the universe.

P.S. I am an American teenager.

Saw 1&2 , spiderman 2, contact, narnia,

all better than oldboy

ha ha don't make me laugh

thats just your opinion

you say as an Asian, Hollywood movies have better storyline

well american is a big rich country who make great movies but also make a lot of terrible movies too

check out imdb's worst movies

And so what if your asian doesn't mean your right about your opinion. Where were you born anyway?

I agree with this post. People who don't realise the core of Hollywood is so larlgy pinched from Asia. Try the Streetfighter series of the 70's to beat Rambo et all, try A Better Tomorrow and Hard Boiled to beat the Matrix, try Zebraman to beat X-MEN, try Audition for Saw, for Termanitor try I'm A Cyborg But That's OK or Full Metal Yakuza (not that great but comedy), try The Great Yokai War for the Asian LOTR, and I'll look forward to the first real Asian Star Wars style film.

thats what I meant by HALF

the Northern Part,
They are ALL Koreans

indeed this film is like nothing i've seen before.. i've seen a lot of original movies, and this one is one of them. Though the film is insanely entertaining and original, it does not come close to the best korean film (and in my opinion the best asian film) oldboy. However this film is still an inventive piece of cinematic work.
THis sort of product would have been very difficult to make in America..not only by Hollywood, but also by independent cinema ( and i've seen a lot)..

however it is true that, like america, not all korean movies are good...only a bunch of them are truly unique.