Every so often I hit up netflix for any new foreign titles. Last couple of weeks it has been a mixture of Korean and HK romance/comedy/drama movies. But the last week alone has been pretty much bollywood titles (mostly post-2000).
What I've watched recently from the most recent to the oldest:
What's Your Raashee?
The plot itself is pretty shallow, but for a film that's nearly 3 and a half hours long, I was kept pretty entertained. The particularly fun part is that all twelve women he meets up with is played by the same actress (Priyanka Chopra) which has different personalities due to different Raashee ('sun sign' or zodiac sign). Ending was somewhat predictable after having seen a few movies of similar theme.
Drink Drank Drunk
Not a bollywood film but rather an HK (Cantonese) Romance/Comedy about a beer girl who hooks up with a french chef (who happens to be Chinese but trying to sell french cuisine in hong kong), has a few funny moments. PS: The DVD poster is NOT how the characters are portrayed in the video lol, so if you were hoping for a blonde chinese chick... not happening.
Chunhyang
A more or less 'historical' romance drama, that follows a 13th century korean noble who marries the daughter of a courtesan and course follows the hardship of trying to hide his marriage from public view lest shaming his family and possibly costing his father a royal position.
HumTum
Hum Tum I guess is "You and I", follows a cartoonist (and playboy) who runs into an unlikely match of a girl. The general moral of the story seems to be that sometimes it just takes several meetings to fall in love. Despite the description there's not much animated in the film, but mainly a few minor clips showing the animated characters as kind of a filler to their personalities.
Jab We Met
A rich industrialist runs into quite the chatterbox of a woman that turns out to be one hell of misfortune and misunderstanding after another, with a few dramatic separations here and there. Quite a few funny and possible predictable scenes. What I couldn't get over was the rampant mixing of english into the hindu language but I quickly learned this is pretty common over there.
Hooked On You
Another HK Romance Comedy about a fishmonger that seems to count the days til she's 30 hoping to find the ideal husband. Also has quite a few funny scenes when it comes to market rivals intruding on her turf at the local markets.
Romantic Island
A Korean Romance/Comedy that follows 3 potential couples as they all journey to a island in the Philippines for various reasons. I'm noticing that a number of korean romance/comedies tend to follow multiple story lines often with multiple couples rather than concentrating on one couple. I particularly found the pop star and dorky guy storyline to be the funniest while the married couple to be the most touching. The movie tends to end off giving all three roughly equal emphasis on the conclusion.
La Lingerie
I wasn't quite sure what to think about this one, mainly concentrates on a woman joining a lingerie firm on sort of an intern, but course she has a romantic dry spell and is of course trying to hook up with the ideal guy, her friends don't exactly have the best luck either. There's quite a few hilarious moments with the guy's behaviors, and friend Donut (... what kind of name is that?) seems to have the most outlandish guy problems while I felt bad for CC the most at the end.
Hot Summer Days (mandarin)
This was a nice touching romance (sorta comedy), follows several couples during one of the hottest heat waves of the summer. Most of the story lines are pretty much separated from each other , but without spoiling the story much at least two of the story lines are intimately connected which is revealed at the end. I particularly liked the "Ferrari & Mozart" storyline (you'll see what I mean if you watch it).
The Wedding Banquet (mandarin)
Probably one of my favorites in a long time. It's a story about a gay couple living in New York. One of them has parents from Taiwan trying to set him up with marriage meetings that he decides that he's going to fake an engagement with one of his female tenants to get his parents off his back... only to find out they're flying over to make marriage arrangements for him. Plenty of hijinks ensue as you can imagine, but it also addresses some of the deeper points of acceptance from family as well as emotional strife of having to hide such a lifestyle from family.
What Women Want (Mandarin)
If you have seen the american version with mel gibson... it's essentially the same thing, just the comedy routine changed a little bit, and using Andy Lau and Gong Li as the actors for the role. I found *some* of the scenes creepier/funnier than the american version, but the plot/storyline is essentially the same, and I found the twin secretaries in this version to be much funnier than the american version.
Sophie's Revenge (Fei Chang Wan Mei)
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. This was a very comical movie about a woman's plot to win back to the love of her fiancé who dumped her for a movie star with the hope that she'll reject him at the alter in order to crush his puny little soul. Course nothing seems to go as planned...
Got Suggestions, etc? Feel free to comment.