Korean Job Discussion Forums

Ya-ta Boy · Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Location: Established in 1994

I was Christmas shopping in Wal-Mart (Masan) today and came across Fritz Lang's "Die Nibelungen" (1924). I vaguely remembered hearing the director's name before but had never heard of this movie. I wasn't sure what I was buying. I had my fingers crossed that it wasn't an opera and had no idea it was a silent movie.

It turned out to be terrific. After the first few minutes I got into it. The dragon drooled and breathed fire and the blood spurted and kept spurting when Siegfried stabbed it. Pretty darn good special effects for 80 years ago.

You have to suspend disbelief when you read a book and get lost in it and you do the same when watching a movie. For most of the 143 minutes I forgot I was watching a black and white silent movie. Sometimes the overacting was a little hard to take, and sometimes I was reminded I was watching an old black and white silent movie, but mostly I was swept up in the story. There is some very interesting camera work/special effects that I had no idea they could do in 1924.

W5,500 well spent.

(I looked up Fritz Lang and found out he was an Austrian director who made German Expressionist movies between the wars, then went to Hollywood and made film noire. His most famous movies are Metropolis and M. (Which must be where I'd heard his name before.)

One frustrating thing: The box indicates there are two parts to the movie: 'Siegfried' and 'Krimheld's Revenge'. Only the first one is on my DVD.

If you like movies, I recommend this one.

If anyone has seen other old classics that are available here in Korea, I'd love to hear about them. My regular DVD shop owner will order anything I ask, if I have a title to give him.

Hater Depot · Joined: 29 Mar 2005

"Safety Last". I don't know if it's available in Korea but if you're interested in silent movies give it a try. It would all be done with computers today.

Rteacher · Joined: 23 May 2005 Location: Western MA, USA

While killing time in the teacher's office, I heard an interesting movie sound-track coming from the adjacent classroom - which is the one that I usually use. When I opened the door to check it out I saw that the film was Charlie Chaplain's "Modern Times" - and the (tech) high school seniors in there were really captivated by his comic genius ... (and maybe by his social consciousness...) I'll be on the look-out to buy it and some other classic silent stuff. I like the way the English captions were very prominent - taking up the whole screen - compared to the tiny Hangul tucked away at the bottom...

igotthisguitar · Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2005 7:58 am Post subject:

Ssssshhhhhhhhhhhh ...

liehtzu · Joined: 24 Mar 2003 Location: the sticks, Korea

Silent movies (dunno how many you can find in Korea):

American off the top of my head:
Sunrise
Tabu
Greed
The Crowd
Nanook of the North
Broken Blossoms
Seventh Heaven
He Who Gets Slapped
The Marriage Circle
The Student Prince
Eternal Love
The Unholy Three
The Unknown
The Wind
The Big Parade

For comedy anything by Chaplin or Harold Lloyd and, as you may be able to tell, I'm something of a Buster Keaton fan.

German

anything directed by Lang, Lubitsch, or Murnau

French

Napoleon (this you can definitely find in Korea)
The Passion of Joan of Arc (I'm pretty sure about this one too)

Swedish/Dutch

Haxan

Anything directed by Victor Sjostrom, Mauritz Stiller, or Carl Dreyer

English

Early Hitchcock and "Hindle Wakes"

Spanish

Un Chien Andalou
L'Age d'or

Russian

anything Russian, as all of it's fascinating propaganda. Directors: Eisenstein (Battleship Potemkin), Pudovkin (Mother, The End of St Petersburg, Storm Over Asia), Dovzhenko (Earth, Arsenal), Vertov (Man With a Movie Camera), or Kuleshov.

It might be possible to find some of the Russian and German stuff in Korea, along with Chaplin and Keaton, but the odds of finding most of this stuff are pretty slim (alot of it isn't on DVD in the US).

Cheers

Paji eh Wong · Joined: 03 Jun 2003

There's this B&W short production I'm trying to remember the name of. Its about these two groups of kids who have an out and out snow ball war. ie. a cast of hundred, trench warfare, giant snow forts, stretcher bearers ect.

I want to teach a generation of Korean kids how awesome it can be to build a giant snow fort and then kill your dog with it.

Moldy Rutabaga · Joined: 01 Jul 2003 Location: Ansan, Korea

The older the better. Some of the early Keystone Kops films are wonderfully cheesy. Look for "Tillie's Punctured Romance", around 1915.

Many people do not realize that animated cartoons were around 20 years before Disney. There's some great early Popeye and Koko cartoons.

The great thing about silent films is that most are now in the public domain and can be found on public video archive sites.

Ken:>

Ya-ta Boy · Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Location: Established in 1994

Thanks for the tips, folks.

I have my eye out for DW Griffiths because I have seen clips of some of his work. I want find out why "Birth of a Nation" caused riots when it was released. I also really want to see "Orphans of the Storm" mostly because the title sounds cool. "Broken Blossoms", "Intolerance" and "Way Down East" sound interesting, too.