5. The King and the Clown (Lee Jun Ik) - My fifth pick is one of the highest-grossing films in Korean history, and deserves it. The film tackles a very subtle issue about homosexuality, which is a big deal in a country whose official national religion is Catholicism. This movie does what others can only dream of achieving - balances character development, controversy, corruption, and bittersweet endings. It's a complex story about the mental instability of a king, his obsession with a male performer, and the ways in which they damage and fix each other. Hell, this movie's so good, it made me like clowns for 120 minutes - now that's a feat.4. I'm A Cyborg, But That's OK (Park Chan Wook) - I normally don't go for love stories - they leave me feeling somewhat empty and cheated. However, this changed my mind. In Park's first attempt at a romantic comedy, two very troubled young adults fall in love in a rather unconventional setting: a mental hospital. The girl, Young Goon, believes she's a cyborg, and speaks to machines while feeding on electrical currents here and there. However, when she meets the boy Il Sun (who believes he can steal nonmaterial things from people - their skills, memories, etc.), they enter a peculiar friendship. Cyborg's story centers mostly around individuality and everyone's purpose in the grand scheme of things, which is a rare message in Korean films as Korean culture is very much centered on the idea of national unity.
3. Last Life in The Universe (Pen-Ek Ratanaruang) - Everyone knows that Asano Tadanobu (most of you will know him as "the guy with the scars from Ichi the Killer") is my heartthrob. In this film he plays the bored, suicidal brother of a Yakuza member, and throughout the movie he ends up in the strangest of circumstances - hiding (cough) while his brother is shot up in their apartment, witnessing the death of a young girl on a bridge (then befriending her sister, who was in the car), and somehow ending up on a road trip with aforementioned sister in mourning. Through the whole film there are parallels to a short story about a lizard, and it's up to the viewer to determine how it relates to the characters.2. Memories of Matsuko (Nakashima Tetsuya) - Yes, a musical is in my second spot. I'm very vocal about my hatred of musicals, but something about this one just charmed the doubt right out of me; Nakatani Miki as Matsuko is one of the most touchingly tragic and adorable portrayals I will ever see. The entire story is told from Matsuko's nephew's (played by one of my favorite actors, Nagayama Eita) point of view, which is an amazing twist. He learns about her through stories from old acquaintances and cleaning out her apartment having never known her himself. Through relationships with abusive men (all of whom are the personification of a cataclysm, I swear it), one can clearly see that her joy in life was with bringing happiness to others, no matter how unfortunate they were (or how much it hurt), all the way until her death.
1. Aoi Haru (Toshiyaki Toyada) - Finally, my number one film! Everything about this film completely floors me. From the soundtrack (no really, the soundtrack makes any Japanese indie punk fan cry tears of joy) to the camera angles, to the actors (every single one of them does an amazing job - Sosuka Takaoka, Matsuda Ryuhei, Nagayama Eita, Hirofumi Arai, and Shugo Oshinari - hell, all of them!), to the individual stories of heartache, loss, and uncertainty. The basic plot follows a group of students at an all-male high school that is known for being pretty low on the academic scale. It's filled with the most tragic of monologues, and the most beautifully executed slow motion scenes. I'm going to go ahead and take a risk by saying that yes, this movie did change me, and every single character in it is relatable in some way to myself.
