PopBunker.net Recommends: 10 Foreign Movies

My intent is not to list the best foreign language films. That list would be impossible because I’ve seen so many and the list would be dominated by Kurosawa movies. Instead I hope to spotlight a few foreign films that I love that may have fallen through the cracks; or movies of which folks may need reminded.

The King of Masks (1999)
Country: China
Directed by Wu Tianming

“The King of Masks” is a sentimental and heartfelt movie that tells the story of master street performer in 1930s Hong Kong who purchases a young boy as an apprentice to whom to pass on his knowledge of performing masks. The Master comes to love his apprentice, “Doggie,” but is stunned when he finds that”Doggie has been posing a boy to keep from being sold into a brothel. Â Doggie is actually a young woman but the Master’s craft of can only be passed to a male.

Doggie and the master continue to bond although she can no long be an apprentice. Life-threatening suspense eventually comes about and it is up to Doggie to rescue the Master.

Cavite (2006)
Country: Philippines, USA
Directed by Ian Gamazon and Neill Dela Llana

A digital film low budget geo-political thriller, “Cavite” creates both tension and controversy while focusing on the plot of a terrorist organization and its ability to create an unwilling man into a terrorist bomber. “Cavite” is packed with poignancy, great acting, and effective use of digital filming to frame real life-like harrowing events.

“Cavite” is a one-trick movie that works due to the inspiration of the filmmakers and the political climate around the globe. The tension is exhausting as one feels the actors as they sell out for the role.

The Orphanage (El Orfanato 2007)
Country: Spain, Mexico
Directed by Juan Antonio Bayona

A young married couple and their young son return to the orphanage where the wife was raised to restore and re-open it as a home for disabled children.

As time passes the young son’s behavior turns more and more strange while his mother begins to feel that something supernatural in the house has awoken.

“The Orphanage” is a wonderful gothic ghost story that is traditional enough for it to seem familiar, but unique enough for it to stand out. Visually impressive.

Le Trou (1960)
Country: France
Directed by Jacques Becker

“Le Trou” began the decade of prison break movies (the 1960s) with a style not attempted by others of the genre. “Le Trou” mixes black and white impressionism with some existential qualities and what came to be a very typical prison break plot. The acting, suspense, and visual style of “Le Trou,” however, makes it a mostly undiscovered gem of Jaques Becker’s body of work.

Red Beard (Akahige 1965)
Country: Japan
Directed by Akira Kurosawa

One of auteur Akira Kurosawa’s lesser known films, “Red Bead” focuses on compassion and humanity as expressed by village doctor ‘Red Beard,’ brilliantly played by Toshiro Mifune, and his relationship with a haughty under-study. The under-study is at first contemptuous of Red Beard’s old ways, compassion, and personal relationships, but eventually grows to understand that Red Beard’s aim in his practice is not only to heal the physical nature of a man.

Kurosawa’s mastery of black and white is more muted in “Red Beard” than it is in some of his greater known works, but the expressed admiration of the human spirit and optimistic view of relationships and compassion makes “Red Beard” a feel-good favorite.

District 13 (13 Tzameti 2005)
Country: France
Directed by Pierre Morel

Heart-pounding innovative martial arts action spurs this dystopian gang-land thriller to the realm of memorable. Unbelievable stunts, like Jackie Chan on coke, highlight a mostly original plot where a vigilante with a score to settle and cop infiltrate a walled off, gang-ruled ghetto in order to find a stolen nuclear weapon.

The amazing action and 80 minute runtime makes this movie peel the reel like a concentrated dose of Redbull.

The Magician (Ansiket 1959)
Country: Sweden
Directed by: Ingmar Bergman

Most film dabblers have at least seen Bergman’s The Seventh Seal, but “The Magician” is another reality bending, surreal, and existential masterpiece which stars Max von Sydow. von Sydow plays Vogler, a traveling mystic who confounds a town’s elders bent on proving him a fake.

Bergman once again delivers both tense and comedic elements to this explorative satire.

The City of Lost Children (La cité des enfants perdus 1995)
Country: France, Spain, Germany
Directed by Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet

Somehow combining the visuals of “Brazil” and “Metropolis” with a sci-fi/fantasy story in the vein of Ray Bradbury, “The City of Lost Children” is a dreamy tour through a frightening landscape of bizarre. At its heart, “The City of Lost Children” is a quest movie that features memorable characters and impressively dark and fantastical cinematography. Ron Pearlman stands out as “One,” the hero of the film.

Let the Right One In (Låt den rätte komma in 2008)
Country: Sweden
Directed by Thomas Alfredson

Many folks probably know about “Let the Right One In” due to the remake scheduled to hit U.S. theaters in 2010. The cast and talent lined up for the remake is top notch, but there is nothing to improve upon from the original.

Set in the stark, snow-tinged, and muted tones of rural Sweden, “Let the right One In” immediately places itself apart with a deliberate and un-sensationalized pace. The coming of age teenage vampire buddy movie is a serious piece of drama with no trivialization or campiness to be found. That is not to say that the movie is without humor – the humor is wonderful and subtle – but it is a movie that completely distances itself from the sexy mythos of the teeny-bop vampire craze in the United States. That’s not all it does; it’s just the start.

The cinematography is breathtaking and the sound editing innovations are some of the most pervasive and memorable that one is likely to ever hear. You have to watch it to experience what I mean. Fantastic movie.

The Wages of Fear (Le Salaire De La Peur 1953)
Country: France, Italy
Directed by: Henri-Georges Clouzot

“The Wages of Fear” is an education in tense filled suspense filmmaking. The movie is about four destitute truck drivers to answer the call for employment for an uncaring oil company to transport volatile nitroglycerine, via truck, across Central America.

The films blends astute character development and edge-of-your-seat high tension as the truck drivers make their way across harsh terrain to reach their of delivery. The viewer is drawn, with sweaty palms and accelerated heart-beat, into the drama and feels every bump and obstacle that the drivers face.

A magnificent force of tension and drama that, once in stride, never lets the viewer breathe easy.