Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Kiyoshi Kurosawa picks his Top Ten Favorite Films of the '00's

by Chris MaGee

As I post this story we at the Pow-Wow are busily compiling not only our lists of favorite theatrical and DVD releases of 2009, but also our Top Ten Picks for the past decade in Japanese films (check back on January 26th to see which films make the cut). Everyone loves these lists, including us, so when I saw this news item over at Wildgrounds this morning I knew that I had to share it with you all. It's the top ten picks of the '00's as made by prominent Asian filmmakers and amongst those naming their favorites is "Cure", "Pulse", and 'Tokyo Sonata" director Kiyoshi Kurosawa. For someone who has proudly stated in the past that he's a genre filmmaker, and one heavily influenced by American film, many of Kurosawa's picks make a lot of sense, but I am a little surprised that Spielberg's "War of the Worlds" made it right to the top of the heap.

Check out Kurosawa's Top Ten below and for an added treat follow the link above and check out the Top Ten picks from another Japanese auteur, Shinji Aoyama.

1. War of the Worlds, Steven Spielberg
2. A History of Violence, David Cronenberg
3. Mystic River, Clint Eastwood
4. Our Music, JL Godard
5. L’enfant, Dardennes Bros
6. Eureka, Shinji Aoyama
7. Death Proof, Quentin Tarantino
8. Platform, Jia Zhang-ke
9. The Host, Bong Joon-ho
10. The Bridesmaid, Claude Chabrol

1 comment:

Bob Turnbull said...

I just happened to have seen "The Bridesmaid" just before reading Kurosawa's list. It's probably my favourite Chabrol film so far (even more than "Le Boucher" and "Les Biches"). He builds things really slow, offers up lots of misdirection, odd behaviour and simply keeps the viewer right off balance.

Really interesting list.