Films based on Graphic Novels

'Hellboy...Red...Watchmen...Edge of Tomorow....quite a few up there I liked.

I don't normally vote in my own polls, but this time I did give a vote to Oldboy (aka Oldeuboi) as I think it deserves some recognition (there was a US remake, directed by Spike Lee, that is not supposed to be nearly as good -- they rarely are). It won the Grand Prix at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival and Quentin Tarantino, who was President of the Jury that year, was very praising of it. Normally I'm not that big on "action" films (plenty I do like, mind you), but this neo-noir revenge action film really worked for me.

Oldboy is the second part of what is known as The Vengeance Trilogy by Park Chan-wook (screenwriter and director). It consists of Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002), Oldboy (2003) and Lady Vengeance (2005) and is best seen as a trilogy. A big part of what i like about these films is his composition, but also because they highlight some rather interesting ethical issues (I think the second and third are my favourites). I loved his I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK (Saibogujiman kwenchana) film. Not a great title, maybe, but it's a witty and poignant film.

Park Chan-wook produced Snowpiercer (directed and co-written by Bong Joon Ho), which is on my list. This is another of my particular favourites. I am a big fan of Bong Joon Ho's The Host, which is a playful, sometimes delightful, and ultimately very poignant monster movie (it works as part homage to classic monster B movies). I know The Host isn't even on this list, but here's a review of it which utterly fails to resonate with me.

"Maybe this [The Host] is actually a treatise on the dissonance between East and West, science and nature, promise and tragedy. Nah. It's just a dumb, crappy horror movie that wants to be celebrated as such."

Maybe you're just a dumb, crappy writer that wants to be celebrated as such.

Bong Joon Ho also directed the, I think excellent, Memories of Murder. More recently, Bong Joon Ho directed Okja, which I liked even through I felt some of the comedy didn't work that well.

The changed the end of the Watchmen as the novel is even darker but both versions work well for me.

First vote for A History Of Violence. I admire Viggo for going in the exact opposite direction acting wise to rid himself of the heroic horse riding king from Tolkien's imagination. Nahh how about a psycho russian mobster and here in a similar violent role. Frodo..err sorry Elijah Sood did something similar and did a crazy psychokiller with a taste for human flesh as well as a guy that quickly becomes enamoured with football hooliganism and generally just feeling good about giving certain folks a good stomp in their tummies. It didn't really work though. I still think pwople see Elijah and want to call him Frodo. It's inevitable. Sadly.
Ed Harris is wonderful as a baddie in the flick. Those crewcut guys who've been casted accordingly for years and years make for the finest of villains shen they finally get the gig...but maybe that is entirely the point? I doubt it. Producers and casters aren't exactly fortune tellers.

Hhmmm The Watchmen... now while I do like it and probably like it a lot, I am still slightly letdown by it. In its open attempt to make superheroes and the whole universe surrounding them more realistic and human, it sadly misses the opportunity to 'really stick it to the man' and make a film that fully crosses that line in order to underline what I personally believe is at its very core: the ultimate dilemma.
In short: why not have full-frontal-nudity-blue-man-group-of-one succeed? The bomb goes off, we reset the clocks and let mother nature go back to work. It would have been such a beautiful feck-you to the whole industry...but then again I don't suppose the graphic novel ends like that either? I'm asking because I don't know.

Definitely V for Vendetta.