iCM Forum's Favourite Movies from South-East Asia Top 50
The 50 favorite movies from South-East Asia as chosen by users from the iCM Forum.
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50 titles
- DirectorApichatpong WeerasethakulStarsThanapat SaisaymarJenjira PongpasSakda KaewbuadeeDying of kidney disease, a man spends his last, somber days with family, including the ghost of his wife and a forest spirit who used to be his son, on a rural northern Thailand farm.
- DirectorPen-Ek RatanaruangStarsTadanobu AsanoSinitta BoonyasakTakashi MiikeA suicidal, obsessively compulsive Japanese librarian is forced to lie low in Thailand with a pot-smoking woman coping with the recent loss of her sister.
- DirectorJoshua OppenheimerAnonymousChristine CynnStarsAnwar CongoHerman KotoSyamsul ArifinA documentary which challenges former Indonesian death-squad leaders to reenact their mass-killings in whichever cinematic genres they wish, including classic Hollywood crime scenarios and lavish musical numbers.
- DirectorApichatpong WeerasethakulStarsBanlop LomnoiSakda KaewbuadeeHuai DessomA romance between a soldier and a country boy, wrapped around a Thai folk-tale involving a shaman with shape-shifting abilities.
- DirectorLino BrockaStarsHilda KoronelBembol RocoLou Salvador Jr.Júlio Madiaga, a 'provinciano', arrives in Manila to search for his beloved, Ligaya.
- DirectorApichatpong WeerasethakulStarsNantarat SawaddikulJaruchai IamaramSophon PukanokStory about director Apichatpong Weerasethakul's parents, who were both doctors, and the director's memories about growing up in the hospital environment.
- DirectorDang Nhat MinhStarsVân LêLuu Viet Bao DangYen HoangDuyen faces a daily struggle to care for her young son and her weakened father-in-law, while keeping secret the fact that her husband died in a battle during the war.
- DirectorGareth EvansStarsIko UwaisAnanda GeorgeRay SahetapyA S.W.A.T. team becomes trapped in a tenement run by a ruthless mobster and his army of killers and thugs.
- DirectorLav DiazStarsSid LuceroAngeli BayaniArchie AlemaniaAn embittered law student commits a brutal double murder; a family man takes the fall and is forced into a harsh prison sentence; a mother and her two children wander the countryside looking for some kind of redemption.
- DirectorLino BrockaStarsHilda KoronelMona LisaRez CortezThe life of a young girl living with her mother in the slums of Manila becomes unbearable when her mother's young boyfriend moves in with them.
- DirectorGareth EvansStarsIko UwaisYayan RuhianArifin PutraOnly a short time after the first raid, Rama goes undercover with the thugs of Jakarta and plans to bring down the syndicate and uncover the corruption within his police force.
- DirectorAnh Hung TranStarsLe Van LocTony Leung Chiu-waiNu Yên-Khê TranWhen a poor bicycle-taxi driver has his cyclo stolen, he is forced into a life of crime. Meanwhile, his sister becomes a sex worker.
- DirectorAnh Hung TranStarsNu Yên-Khê TranMan San LuThi Loc TruongA Vietnamese servant girl, Mui, observes lives within two different Saigon families: the first, a woman textile seller with three boys and a frequently absent husband; the second, a handsome young pianist with his fiancée.
- DirectorKidlat TahimikStarsKidlat TahimikMang FelyDolores SantamariaA Filipino jeepney driver (Kidlat Tahimik) who idolizes America's space program comes to reject the rapid encroachment of technology.
- DirectorJoshua OppenheimerStarsAdi RukunM.Y. BasrunVolker HanischA family that survived the genocide in Indonesia confronts the men who killed one of their brothers.
- DirectorAnh Hung TranStarsNu Yên-Khê TranQuynh NhuKhanh LeWith the brilliant Vietnamese summer as a setting Vertical Ray of the Sun is beautiful from beginning to end. The plot centres around three sisters, two of whom are happily married (or so it appears). The youngest sister is single and living with her cute older brother, whom she is desperately in love with. A second sister is married to a man who has another woman and child elsewhere whom he loves just as much as his wife -with a few conditions, she agrees to carry on with the marriage. The third sister and her husband are overjoyed to discover she is pregnant, and though he is tempted, her husband remains loyal to her. Charming, slow-paced, face value, family saga film.
- DirectorRithy PanhStarsRandal DoucJean-Baptiste PhouRithy Panh uses clay figures, archival footage, and his narration to recreate the atrocities Cambodia's Khmer Rouge committed between 1975 and 1979.
- DirectorLav DiazStarsElryan de VeraAngie FerroPen MedinaThe collapse and the struggle of a poor farming clan in Philippines.
- DirectorApichatpong WeerasethakulStarsKanokporn TongaramMin OoJenjira PongpasThe story of a love affair that begins during a picnic on the Thai-Burmese border.
- DirectorWisit SasanatiengStarsMahasamut BoonyarukSaengthong Gate-UthongSawatwong Palakawong Na AutthayaPod is a man without a dream. He's a country bumpkin who comes to work at a tinned sardine factory in Bangkok. One day, Pod chops off his finger and packs it in the can, prompting him to go around looking for his lost finger at various supermarkets. The incident convinces him to change his job, and Pod becomes a security guard at a large company. There he meets Jin, a lanky maid who carries a mysterious white book around even though she cannot read a single word written in it. The aimless Pod has a crush on Jin, a dreamy girl who dreams that one day she'll be able to decipher the meaning of the white book. In this bright, colour-splashed world of director Wisit Sasanatieng, Bangkokians can grow tails and a dead grandmother can come back as a chatty gecko to deliver a few life lessons to her grandson. It's a world where innocence is so precious and yet impossible to preserve. The unusual love story between Pod and Jin is set against the playfully ironic portrait of Bangkok, the city that offers false dreams and real disillusionment
- DirectorLav DiazStarsPerry DizonRoeder CamanagHazel OrencioThe Philippines, 1972. Mysterious things are happening in a remote barrio. Wails are heard from the forest, cows are hacked to death, a man is found bleeding to death at the crossroad and houses are burned. Ferdinand E. Marcos announces Proclamation No. 1081 putting the entire country under Martial Law.
- DirectorLino BrockaStarsLolita RodriguezLilia DizonEddie GarciaThis landmark film is considered by many to be one of the most important in Philippine cinema. The son of a wealthy man, Junior has everything he could possibly want. But the emptiness of his extravagant lifestyle and the hypocrisy of the town's so-called leading citizens weigh heavily on him, pushing him to reach out to the village outcasts.
- DirectorAngelina JolieStarsSareum Srey MochPhoeung KompheakSveng SocheataCambodian author and human rights activist Loung Ung recounts the horrors she suffered as a child under the rule of the deadly Khmer Rouge.
- DirectorApichatpong WeerasethakulStarsJenjira PongpasBanlop LomnoiJarinpattra RueangramA group of soldiers in a small town on the Mekong River in northern Thailand are struck with a bizarre sleeping illness.
- DirectorLav DiazStarsCharo Santos-ConcioJohn Lloyd CruzMichael De MesaAfter 30 years of wrongful imprisonment, a woman plans to take revenge on her former lover.
- DirectorPen-Ek RatanaruangTom Pen-Ek RatanaruangStarsTasanawalai OngartittichaiBlack PhomtongLalita PanyopasA woman, fired from a financial coorporation during the Asia crisis, returns home with no money. However, she finds a box with a fortune in front of her door, and decides to keep it. However, the people that left it there soon want it back.
- DirectorPrachya PinkaewStarsTony JaaPhetthai VongkumlaoPumwaree YodkamolWhen the head of a statue sacred to a village is stolen, a young martial artist goes to the big city and finds himself taking on the underworld to retrieve it.
- DirectorAnthony ChenStarsYann Yann YeoTian Wen ChenAngeli BayaniIn 90s Singapore, the friendship between Filipino nursemaid Teresa and her young charge Jiale makes waves in a family, while the Asian recession hits the region.
- DirectorJosh KimStarsIngkarat DamrongsakkulToni RakkaenThira ChutikulOn the eve of the draught lottery in Thailand, Oat remembers trying to convince his older brother to change his fate.
- DirectorKim MordauntStarsSitthiphon DisamoeLoungnam KaosainamSuthep Po-ngamLaos. In a land ravaged by war and exploitation, a boy whose family believe he is cursed must redeem himself by taking part in a dangerous rocket competition.
- DirectorWisit SasanatiengStarsChartchai NgamsanStella MalucchiSupakorn KitsuwonWith its loud acting style, exuberant sets and stunning shots in pastel colours, this Thai cult film is as much a parody as an homage to the Western and the romantic tearjerker.
- DirectorSean EllisStarsJake MacapagalJohn ArcillaAlthea VegaThis riveting crime thriller follows Oscar, a recent emigrant to Manila who gets pulled into a harrowing world of corruption and violence when he takes a job as an armored car driver to support his family (in Tagalog w/ English subtitles).
- DirectorApichatpong WeerasethakulStarsDuangjai HiransriKome Kongkiat KomesiriSaisiri XoomsaiA film crew documents a folk story-exquisite corpse combination by random Thai people; the story is reenacted.
- DirectorPrachya PinkaewStarsJeeJa YaninHiroshi AbePongpat WachirabunjongAn autistic girl with powerful martial art skills looks to settle her ailing mother's debts by seeking out the ruthless gangs that owe her family money.
- DirectorBaz PoonpiriyaStarsChutimon ChuengcharoensukyingEisaya HosuwanTeeradon SupapunpinyoLynn, a genius high school student who makes money by cheating tests, receives a new task that leads her to set foot on Sydney, Australia. In order to complete the millions-Baht task, Lynn and her classmates have to finish the international STIC(SAT) exam and deliver the answers back to her friends in Thailand before the exam takes place once again in her home country.
- DirectorVan Thong NguyenVu TranStarsLan NgocVinh ThúyUyen ToLittle Nga and her father earn their living by fishing on a riverbank. He father also carries a secret duty of transporting revolutionary cadres across the river to do their mission. Little Nga also helps her father with that secret duty. French troops have suspected little Nga's family for a long time of coordinating with people of the resistance war. When hearing that there will be a group of cadres crossing the river, the French tied little Nga's father and forced her to pretend doing her daily routine in order to trick the cadres. However, little Nga used her cleverness, wisdom, and bravery to rush to the riverbank to alert the cadres of the French troops. While doing that, she was shot down. Just before her last breath, little Nga releases a passerine bird - a dear friend of hers - whom she has been taking care of.
- DirectorH. Tjut DjalilStarsIlona Agathe BastianYos SantoSofia W.D.A woman researches a book that takes her to the black magic cult of Leák in Bali. She meets an evil witch who promises to train her dark arts. But she is tricked and turned into a flying vampire with internal organs hanging from her neck.
- DirectorAnocha SuwichakornpongStarsVisra Vichit-VadakanArak AmornsupasiriAchtara SuwanIn 1970, She was student activist, a waitress who keeps changing her job, now a film director. All lives loosely connected to each others.
- DirectorLinh VietStarsSon BacKhuong BeNgan ThaiTells the bittersweet story of a small traveling circus stopping in an impoverished ethnic minority village in Vietnam's central highlands. Through the eyes of a village youngster, we witness the magic of the circus, and the naive hope that illusion can be transformed into reality.
- DirectorKhavnStarsTadanobu AsanoNathalia AcevedoElena KazanWhen violence is the only life you know, will love save you or just unravel everything?
- DirectorTsai Ming-liangStarsKang-sheng LeeShiang-chyi ChenNorman AtunA day laborer is badly beaten, and a young man nurses him back to health.
- DirectorDang Nhat MinhStarsTat Binh DangYen HoangVân LêThe dynamics of a Vietnamese rural village change when an urban woman returns to the village she originally belonged to and begins a love triangle.
- DirectorKidlat TahimikStarsHomer AbiadIñigo VitoMaria PehipolKadu, a boy from Pakil, Laguna, experiences the dissolution of tradition as it gives way to capitalism in the form of Madame, a foreigner who initially came to their village as a customer during the Festival of Turumba.
- DirectorNawapol ThamrongrattanaritTer Nawapol ThamrongrattanaritStarsVajrasthira KoramitWanlop RungkumjadPuangpaka AksornsawangA young location scout meets the art director of her project in a day they will keep in their memories for a while, each for their own reasons.
- DirectorPen-Ek RatanaruangStarsTadanobu AsanoKang Hye-jeongEric TsangAfter inadvertently killing his girlfriend, a man (Asano) flees Macau for Thailand in an attempt to cope with his guilt, and avoid possible arrest. But the relocation doesn't prevent his problems from following him, as his new friends could be potential enemies.
- DirectorPeque GallagaStarsCherie GilSandy AndolongLiza LorenaTwo affluent families struggle and learn to survive during the Japanese occupation in the Philippines.
- DirectorH. Tjut DjalilStarsBarbara Anne ConstableChristopher J. HartClaudia Angelique RademakerThe spirit of an ancient evil queen possesses the body of a young anthropological student, who then goes on a murderous rampage.
- DirectorBrillante MendozaStarsCoco MartinMaria Isabel LopezJulio DiazA young man tries to make some money so he can marry his girlfriend. He takes a job for $2,000 and then realizes that this job involves killing a woman.
- DirectorEric KhooStarsTetsuya BesshoMotoko GollentYoshihiro TatsumiA story based on the life and short stories of Yoshihiro Tatsumi, a mangaka known for his gekiga style of alternate Japanese manga.