Asian Horror Movies
Asian horror movies are very different from american horror movies. No stupid jumpscare or blood, but a real spooky ambience with the fear slowly building up. Asian horror movies use a lot of the topic about ghosts, instead of zombies or other monster with a face full of blood like we can see on american horror movies.
In horror movies from Asia, the ghost is often female, and wears a white dress, and has long hair covering her face. So we can't see what's behind her hair, it's very mysterious, strange and then it's so much more scarier than ridiculous and cliche blood that splashes out everywhere.
Another great thing in asian horror movies is the fact that lot of them have a STORY PLOT. The characters don't get killed each their turn and the end, NO. There is a real story plot behind it. And most of the time it is a sad and touching story. Like implying the reason of why the ghost kills people, why does the ghost have so much hatred and is negative, probably had problems when it was still alive. The reason might be : The ghost got killed and then grows a grudge and kills anyone who enters the place where the ghost has been killed. For example, the movie Ju-On, Kayako been killed in her house. So anyone who come in her house, get the curse and die as well. Or in certain cases, the ghost killed itself because they had a terrible life, so they try to reincarnate into a new person, to get a better life , a life without problems and suicide attempts. For example the movie The Eye 2, which is about reincarnation and is touching/sad story. The ghosts are not always evil, sometimes they got a hard life, got killed etc, so we can feel sympathy for the ghost, as well as feeling scared of them. Asian horror movies then are "hybrid". I mean, they mix horror/spooky with sadness, touching story and sometimes poetic vibe.
Some asian horror movies also use a "plot twist", that comes generally near the end of the movie. A plot twist is something that we don't expect in the movie, and most plot twists in asian horror movies are very amazing and mindblowing, like in the movie A Tale of Two Sisters, for example.
So, Asian horror movies often use a mix between spooky/scary and sad, touching story. And also suspense building up, instead of lame jumpscares. And also asian ghosts are odd and mysterious looking, it is way scarier than a cliche monster with face full of blood.
To me, asian horror movies are far more scarier than american ones. Most of american horror movies, are actually remakes of asian horror movies. (The Grudge, The Ring, The Eye etc...) Americans take their ideas from asian horror movies, because asians are very talented at making horror movies and is scarier than hollywood repetitive stuffs (blood, jumpscares, gore etc...)
People think that asians only have fight or martial arts movies, but it's false, they also make horror movies, and are great at it.
Here is a list of asian horror movies I recommand to watch (and there is a link to each posts of my blog about the movie ) :
- A Tale Of Two Sisters (Korean) : HERE
- The Eye (Hong kong) : HERE
- The Eye 2 (Hong Kong) : HERE
- Chakushin Ari [One Missed Call] (Japan) : HERE
- Ringu [The Ring] (Japan)
- Dark Water (Japan)
- Ju-On [The Grudge] - Beginning Of The End (Japan, year 2014) : HERE
- Shutter (Thailand)
Hmm... So back when the Hollywood version of "The Ring" came out, I heard people say it was a rather scary film. I never watched it myself. Much later I found out that it was actually inspired by/a remake of a Japanese film. I must confess I have never watched that version either. I will make it a point to find a copy and watch it at some point.
ReplyDeleteHorror cinema is not the only thing that Hollywood has "borrowed" from Japan, or Asia in general. There are a few films which I consider landmarks of animation that have been remade or served as inspiration for Hollywood. Most recently, Oshii Mamoru's "Ghost In the Shell" (1995) was adapted (though I would argue extremely poorly) into a live action film which was released in 2017. Then, there is also the late Kon Satoshi's "Paprika" (2006) which many (myself included) argue that served as building blocks for Christopher Nolan's "Inception" (2010); as well as Kon's psychological thriller "Perfect Blue" (1997) which has material with striking similarities to those presented in Darren Aronofsky's "Black Swan" (2010), and the bathtub scene in Aronofsky's "Requiem for a Dream" (2000) is almost lifted frame by frame from "Perfect Blue".