Well, there can't be any good without the bad. Movies in other countries and languages are no other than domestic films. Some of them are good and some of them are bad. If a movie is shot in a foreign language it doesn't necessarily mean greatness. That much we all know.

Moreover, just like domestic movies, foreign movies can be overrated and underrated. Of course, in the end, it is all an opinion, but that's what I am asking you for. What foreign movies do you think are mostly overrated by everyone? You can refer to critical acclaim or box-office success.

I hope I won't offend too many with my list

Here it goes:


Lola Rennt (Run Lola Run) - This is probably by far and away the most overrated foreign movie I have ever seen. At the same time it is also the one of the most popular German films worldwide which opened the way to Hollywood to Franka Potente. She was the single good thing about this entire movie. The flick itself wasn't horrible, but so terribly mediocre and hugely overrated in my opinion. Maybe it is too modern for me and I didn't get the point? Then again, I am the young generation the movie is actually aiming at, yet I couldn't find much fascinating about it. The "chaos theroy"-like implications in the movie have been done before and after it in a better way and the screenplay wasn't exactly a masterpiece. I am pretty sure some people will actually agree with me on this one.


Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon - Well, actually I found this one the best of my list and the only one I'd actually call pretty decent. However, while decent, it is nowehere as great as many make it out to be. While I enjoyed the well-choreographed fight scenes and the visuals of the movie, I could never really get into its story. It is one of those style-over-substance cases for me. To be fair, it had more of a story than Hero for istance, but the way the story was handled bothered me. It had interesting ideas, but I could never get into the over-the-top fighting-on-the-trees fight scenes. Sorry, but I just don't see much of a point in them and I think that exaggerated things like that hurt the overall story of the movie. However, the good cast and great technical aspects could somewhat make up for that. CTHD is by no means a bad movie, just not a masterpiece many say it is. Of course, this stays my opinion only.


Bad Education - Another movie that seems to be pretty beloved by many (especially on this site) that I didn't like much. In this movie, I really couldn't figure out the director's aim he tried to achieve with this movie. Did he just want to entertain or did he want to convey a message? Since it's Almodovar, I suspect the latter. Unfortunately, I could never get this message throughout the entire movie. Moreover, I found it kind of strange that the whole movie consisted of gay people only. Don't get me wrong, it's not like that'd be the reason for me to dislike it, but somehow it seemed a bit off and unrealistic that the entire movie was made up by gay people only. I can't recall a single straight guy or a single female character of any importance in it. The only thing I really liked about the movie was the masterful score, but that's about it. This pretty much sums up what I thought about it after having seen it: "Um...okay... " *hides from Dolce*


Maybe I can think of more next time, but it's your turn now, guys and gals, to come up with foreign movies that you think are overrated.

Oh where to begin?

I agree with your Run Lola Run, and while I think fanfare for CTHD was a little too high, after seeing several other contemporary martil arts films, I'm starting to appreciate CTHD more and more. Bad Education isn't overrated. I love it, but it didn't get perfect reviews, high box-office numbers, or well, lets just say WorldohKJ is a bit of an Oasis when it comes to this movie.

Overratted movies in recent history include:

Amelie
Y Tu Mama Tambien
Crimes of Padre Amaro (definately...how did this one get an Oscar nod)?
Hero

I am tempted to say Russian Ark, but the movie never got such high hype and love, so I need to caution myself not to confuse dissappointment for overrated.

Shaolin Soccer

2046

House of Flying Daggers

Interestingly enough, I was going to do HOFD as well, but it suffered so much from Hero backlash that it was never held in as high esteem to begin with. I'd say its marginally overrated, but I never heard people really professing their love for it, and its box office was 1/5 of Hero's. Its too bad, I actually thought it was a slightly better movie, and that if anything, their positions should have been exchanged.

2046 is a tough one because I don't think its officially been released yet here has it? I have no idea how critics and bo and wom will be for this movie. Its an interesting case were imported dvd's made it into rental places before the movie even hit the big screen.

This one is the one people are the most split on, I think. Some adore it and some say it's the lwast deserving film in IMDB's top 250. Well, all I can say is that I loved A Very Long Engagement and if Amelie is anything like this style-wise, I'll like it too. However, I don't think that Tautou is an extraordinary actress.

I also think that House of Flying Daggers is a tad overrated, but it never got immense hype and acclaim, so I didn't bring it up.

Stylistically Amelie and engagement are the same because, well, they're both juenet films. But he actually found a more suitable story in Engagement, it supported his tangendental narrative style (where he takes these small little stories and builds them off of one frame, before returning to the orginal spot). It worked in Engagement because she was supposed to be thinking up all those different scenarios as she tried to find him. It didn't work in Amelie because it just felt random. I liked Engagement much better. A solid B to Amelie's C+. Which is interesting because Engagement never got the fandom that Amelie did. Probably the more serious subject matter?

I agree about Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon being over-rated. The whole wire-fu flying around looked very fake to me, could practically see the wires, and it made no sense. Even beyond that the movie just didn't engage me even as I admired some parts of it.

Harry, un ami qui vous veut du bien ("With a friend like Harry" in the U.S.) - It has good performances and some nicely done scenes, but overall isn't as shocking as it wants to be. Depressing yes, but it seemed like it was going for more than that. Considering it won 4 Cesars and was nominated for 5 more, I expected more. The older woman (of the two main ones) did a great job though, she was memorable.

I´m in shock... I agree with all of those, completely. Although I don´t agree with theb reasons on "Bad education", but didn´t like the movie... CTHD was overrated as hell, IMO. Simply cause I found it boring and quite silly. I can do silly, but I definitely no can do silly pretentious boring... And "Run lola run", I just didn´t see where the big fuss was... It was kind of techno-cinema, not very deep but supposedly fast and modern... but so much running to go exactly where?

Hero, Hero, aaaaaaaaaaand... Hero.

I found Talk to Her to be rather emotionally off-putting.

Then again, I'm not super familiar with Almodovar either, so...

Yeah.

=D>

And I thought I'd offend the complete movie-loving community with my picks, heh.

Is this a fake question?

As all foreign movies are over-rated.

Remember, if it was a good idea - Hollywood would have used it. =D>

I have a ton more movies, but first I need to address the gay thing in Bad Education. Technically, there are only two characters (three is debateable) that's like saying M$B is all straight. Its a movie about these two men's relationship and the one man that comes in between them, if you think about it, all the peripheral characters, including the mother and the make-up artist that Angel marries at the end, is straight. They are very peripheral its true, but you have to remember 90% of the screen time is pretty much on the two men, so....

Ok, I won't pick beyond that though, since Bad Education wasn't that well received by the domestic community, so I think many people agree with you.

I think The Idiots was overrated. One of the benchmarks of Dogme 95, and I think Lars Von Trier's first movie. I just never got all that into it. The end was a bit sad, but by then I wanted to throw peas at the screen, so it rufled me, but it didn't really move me as it should have.

I haven't seen Million Dollar Baby, so I can't really comment, but I am not sure if the sexuals tendencies in Million Dollar Baby are revealed at all, so you wouldn't know if they are gay or not, heh. Bad Education made it quite obvious that every single character present in it is, actually, gay.

I forget to say Kung Fu Hustle.

In fact, I think that many famous Chinese movies are overrated.


BTW, "Infernal Affairs" is truly good for me. :wink:

Amélie
Oldboy
Run Lola Run
Das Experiment
Goodbye Lenin

I definitely don't agree with Kung-Fu Hustle (A+), Amelie (A-), or Run Lola Run (B+; EVERYONE here thinks it's over-rated, so for me it's under-rated :wink: ), but I do agree very strongly with these lumps of coal:

Hero D
House of Flying Daggers B-
Amores Perros B/B- (Good but I thought it was just too damn depressing, and I didn't really get much of a point out of it.)
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon C+

Infernal Affairs
Amelie

I enjoyed these 2 films but they just weren't.... great. I need to watch Amelie again though.

CTHD

Hero

Run Lola Run
___________

Hero and Run Lola run are great but definately overrated, CTHD sucked, it was totaly boring, I could just not get into the film, and I watched it three times to see if I would like it.

Do you think so for the dramas and comedies as well? Or just the martial arts ones?

I'm marking down all the places where we disagree so I can disregard all of your opinions later.

Good one :razz: =D>

And now, Fans of asian cinema (Well, at least the asian cinema that gets release in western countries) beware!

Battle Royale - Great idea. But it wasn´t scary, it wasn´t a funny or clever satire after the first 15 minutes, I didn´t feel anything for the characters and It got repetitive and... the list goes on. A few good moments of dark humour can´t make up for all that.

Audition - Now, this may as well be the worst movie ever. Me and a friend were non-stop laughing during the supposedly terrifying climax - basically a crazy lady practicing a S&M version of acupunture on her victim while saying "Kiri-kiri-kiriiiiiiiiiiiiii". Does it sound stupid? It certainly was. The fact that there was no story before that and the pretentiousness of the whole thing made it all unbereable.

A tale of two sisters - Now, can you jam all the horror cliches of the lat ten years in a single movie? Yes, sir! They did it here. Some of them are spoilers that I won´t disclose but, really, if I see another scary movie with a little japanese girl with wet hair covering her face and scratching her nails against the wall I promise I´ll kill myself. And then I will come back to haunt the world but just as a average, white-blanket-with-two-holes-for-the-eyes type of ghost. Stop the asian invasion! :wink:

Yes, but that is cause It´s a movie about a passionate relationship between two caharcters - during the years. And BTW, Gael Garcia Bernal wasn´t gay in it, or so I thought... he was trying to get a part. Being an actor can be a hard thing sometimes, no pun intended. :wink:

I think the more appropiate comparison would be with "Closer"... only four characters, all of them very straight abd leave that clear very early on in the movie and throughout. But nobody will call it a "straight" film.

I thought we've already achieved that mutual level of disregardment :razz:

RUN< AMELIE< RUN

A humble and lonely eccentric spirit goes on an nationalistic epic....
>>
>>
a. France- Amelie
b. The South- Forrest Gump
C. both of the above
d. neither
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
where does all this Amelie bashing come from??
cheers.. the unknown storyteller[/b]