Let’s go back to our weekly guides to discover the best of cinema and TV series: today we talk about the best oriental horror films
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We recently talked extensively about oriental cinema, so it seemed only right to include it in our guides as well. And since we know that many of you are passionate about this genre, today we will propose the 10 best oriental horror movies.
Best oriental horror movies: our top 10
For several years now, horror films from the Far East have conquered international audiences. The j-horror after all, it has now become a genre in its own right. But don’t make the mistake of believing that only Japan can offer interesting products! In fact, you can also find noteworthy works in other Asian countries. This is demonstrated by the interest that Hollywood has shown towards oriental products, never drawing on them fully for its remakes – some successful, others decidedly less. Having said that, let’s go straight to ours ranking dedicated to the 10 best oriental horror films!
10 – Guinea Pig | Best oriental horror movies
We know, the series Guinea Pig it is known more for the controversies that have involved it than for its actual merits. But in this space we also wanted to dedicate ourselves to lovers ofextreme horror, and here is where the seven films that are part of the project appear in tenth position. Guinea Pig has not had an easy life since the Eighties, when they were associated with the name of a Japanese serial killer (Tsumotu Miyazaki) and moreover mistakenly for real snuff movies. Episodes are characterized by extreme violence, profuse blood and a rather “rough” style. Not all medium-length films are kept on the same level, but if you really want to launch into the company, we would like to recommend two. The first is Flower of Flesh and Blood (1985), the work of the mangaka Hideshi Hino, probably the most gory of the series. The second is Mermaid in a Manhole (1988), also written and directed by Hideshi Hino, in which we witness the encounter between an artist and a mermaid.
9 – Three… extremes | Best oriental horror movies
Anthological horror from 2004, Three… extremes proposes the union between the three major countries of the Far East under the banner of terror. Fruit Chan for China, Park Chan-wook for South Korea, Takashi Miike for Japan. To immerse us in this collective project is Dumplings (of which there is also an extended version, released in 2004), in which delicious ravioli actually turns out to be a repulsive meal. Follows Cut, a sadistic story of revenge against the backdrop of the divide between social classes. In conclusion, the visionary Box, who raises the bar between disturbing nightmares, ghosts from the past and a highly disturbed psyche. The triptych takes up what was previously done by Three (2002), where Kim Ji-woon, Nonzee Nimibutr and Peter Chan were playing with the genre.
8 – Shutter, Banjong Pisanthanakun and Parkpoom Wongpoom | Best oriental horror movies
In our ranking we also find Thailand, with a film that largely refers to the best tradition of Japanese horror. Shutter starts with a scene that has almost become a cliché within the genre: the protagonists, after having run over and killed a girl, run away in fear, abandoning the corpse on the road. Since that time strange paranormal apparitions they begin to haunt the boy, even in the photographs he takes. The girl then begins to investigate, while some friends die suicides. Shutter is a story in which there is certainly no lack of horror, nor i twists, which will keep you glued to the screen until the very end. Hollywood (obviously) made an avoidable remake of it in 2008, entitled Shadows from the past: forget it and run to find the original film!
7 – Ju-on, Takashi Shimizu | Best oriental horror movies
How could it be missing from our list Ju-on, the film that gave birth to the famous horror saga known to Western audiences as The Grudge? It all began in 2000, when Takashi Shimizu directs the story of a horrible family murder and a cruel curse. Infused with all the characters and suggestions that made j-horror famous in the world, Ju-on takes us inside a scary story in which ghosts seek revenge for the terrible injustices suffered in life. Despite some small flaws, which we will then try to fix with the numerous sequels, Ju-on has a fundamental component of a horror film on its side: fear.
6 – Suicide Club, Sion Sono | Best oriental horror movies
Fifty-four high school students hold hands and commit suicide by throwing themselves under a runaway train in the Shinjuku subway in Tokyo. This is the opening words of Suicide Club, a film between horror, drama and detective story directed by the eclectic Japanese filmmaker Sion I am. What prompted the girls to take their own lives? What drives all the others, caught by a rampant epidemic of death on the notes of the pop group Dessert? Once again it is thealienation of the company to be examined in this work of 2002. An aspect that could be extended to the whole world, but which in Japan is particularly felt, due to a rigid culture and made even more homologous by the obsession with technology. Suicide is one of the great problems and taboos of Japanese society, the culmination of a generalized malaise that affects young and old alike. Suicide Club is a work not to be underestimated, which demonstrates how horror is one of the genres that is best able to investigate in man and in society.
5 – Thirst, Park Chan-wook | Best oriental horror movies
The elegance of the South Korean director Park Chan-wook meets in 2009 the disturbing and bewitching atmospheres of a vampire-themed story. Thirst, inspired by Teresa Raquin by Émil Zola, is the story of a shepherd who volunteers for a medical trial aimed at treating a lethal virus. But something goes wrong, and the man turns into a bloodthirsty vampire. To make matters worse, there is the wife of a childhood friend, who becomes his lover and moreover a ruthless vampire that the man cannot keep in check. Between horror and melodrama, Thirst is a very dark film with that grotesque irony typical of Korean cinema. An analysis of the sense of guilt, of the most morbid and unconscious impulses of the human being, often kept imprisoned inside a cage. And how feelings and passion can sometimes lead to destruction.
4 – Ringu, Hideo Nakata | Best oriental horror movies
How not to include in the ranking the film that triggered the j-horror fever in the world? The ring, by the Japanese director Hideo Nakata, became internationally famous thanks to his 2002 Hollywood remake, directed by Gore Verbinski. The story is now known to all: a journalist investigates the death of some young people following the vision of a mysterious videotape. Ringu clears customs for the first time typical elements of oriental horror: disturbing spirits with long black hair, curses, supernatural, seeking revenge, a mixture of tradition and modernity, electrifying jump scares. Here technology becomes an integral part of the horror story and a means of spreading evil. Another element that we will often find in horror since the nineties, a consequence of our lives upset by it – think of the network, social networks. In short, Ringu was one of those films capable of both frightening us and entering our “pop” imaginary. If you missed the original version, run for cover!
3 – Tetsuo: The iron man, Shin’ya Tsukamoto | Migliori film horror orientali
In 1989 another film from Japan – and from one of the most atypical authors on the Japanese scene – shocked cinema and its viewers. The then very young Shin’ya Tsukamoto signed Tetsuo: The iron man, manifesto of the most extreme cyberpunk in which the flesh is contaminated with the machine (did anyone say Cronenberg?). Tetsuo is the delusional story of a man who loves to graft metal components into his body. A car accident will turn him into a strange and dangerous man-machine looking for revenge. The problem is that even the man driving the car that hit him begins to see his body changed … Tetsuo is a urban nightmare set in the streets of Tokyo, where the absurd events underline thealienation of man in the face of an increasingly invasive and depersonalizing technology. And this since the end of the 1980s …
2 – Audition, Takashi Miike | Best oriental horror movies
Apparently Audition (1999), horror of the Japanese Takashi Miike, is destined to eternally finish second in our rankings. The truth is that the line between the top positions is so thin that it doesn’t matter: Audition is an incredible film, and it is probably one of the greatest works of such a complex and prolific director. A middle-aged man, widowed, organizes fake auditions with the complicity of his film producer friend, with the aim of finding a new woman. Among all, Asami strikes him for his sweetness and fragility. But maybe the beautiful girl has something to hide … A story of revenge that in its crescendo strikes us for its cruelty and for one of the most subtle torture scenes in the cinematic imagination. Not to be missed.
1 – Two sisters, Kim Ji-woon | Best oriental horror movies
The podium in our ranking is won by South Korea, with thehorror psicologico Two sisters. Kim Ji-woon once again proves to be a great experimenter of genres. After exploring gangster movie, western, noir, action, black comedy, he probably reaches its peak with the horror genre, going to investigate the horrors and fears that lurk in the human psyche. Two teenage sisters return home after being hospitalized due to psychiatric problems. Here they find the father, a figure often too absent, and the stepmother, with whom relations are not at all idyllic. Things fall apart, and in the meantime disturbing supernatural presences they appear in the big house, worsening the already unstable condition of their fragile minds. Some traumas break something inside us, eventually creating monsters that populate not only our mind, but also the world around us. Watch it without knowing anything about it, enjoying a deeply distressing story with excellent interpretations and a first-rate technical sector.
Our ranking dedicated to the 10 best oriental horror movies ends here! What do you think? Let us know in the comments which movies you have seen and which you would have ranked. And as always, keep following us on this page so as not to miss ours guide su …