what do you experts think?

should i go for these as blind buys? are they sure to please or maybe not?

any advice?

Can't imagine a better blind buy than Oldboy... though I would suggest Save The Green Planet over Natural City any day.

"natural city" got a very mixed response so you could be making a bad choice with that. i highly recommend "old boy" - just go for the standard korean 2disc at $20 from places like koreandvds.com ...

ive bought more dvds this year than any other, mostly asian films, and "old boy" is up there in my top 5 - easily.

Old Boy is well worth a blind buy. Natural City is average, depending on what genre you enjoy. I rate it a 5.5 out of 10 but if you can get it cheap it'll be worth it.

Oldboy, although well acted, I found the content / subject matter a little more than disturbing and offensive so don't recommend it and I wouldnt want to see it again.

I preferred Natural City to Save the Green Planet also. I thought it deserved better praise than it received and only in my opinion, Save the Green Planet is overrated.

(Green Planet and Hero are currently showing at selected cinemas in the UK)

I highly recommend Oldboy and Sympathy for Mr Vengeance as a primer for it (same director) and it will get you in the right frame of mind as to in terms of the gravity of these films.

I would highly recommend Oldboy. I was hesistant when I first heard about it, but it is definitely a great movie. I liked it so much I threw down the coin for the Ultimate Edition.

I thought Natural City was a tedious Blade Runner wanna-be. It seemed to drag on forever. But if you really dig SF, you may find something worthwhile in it.

Oldboy is a great, great film, probably my favorite Korean movie I've seen, but as Chris Taylor pointed out, it's not for everybody.

It's not a sleazoid exploitation film, but it's definitely a transgressive movie that steps outside the bounds. But that's the great thing about Korean movies - they're willing to violate Hollywood "standards", even in their blockbuster films (like in Silmido, where the stock comic relief becomes one of the darkest characters in the film).

In Oldboy, one of the characters eats a live squirming octopus on-screen (for real), another has his teeth pulled out with a claw hammer (that's special effects), and there's a surprise ending I'm not even going to hint at, but it involves a topic that profoundly upsets most people.

If Takashi Miike movies or Irreversible freaked you out then steer clear of Oldboy. Otherwise, get it - but I'd wait to see if Starmax follows up with their "Oldboy Final Edition" plans. The current 2 disc set, while beautifully packaged, has a less-than-sterling transfer. The Final Edition will have the new transfer. Hell, if you've got the scratch go for the Ultimate Edition if you can find it!

Yeah, everything is a Blade Runner wanna-be. I'm tired of hearing how everything rips off Blade Runner. I even said it a few nights ago after seeing Ghost in the Shell 2 and I was sick of hearing it come out of my own mouth. Blade Runner is old and it has Rutger Hauer in it... it's not the best movie in the world and besides - what has it done for me lately? Nothing.

Anyway - Natural City was decent - I did a review of it I think around here somewhere. Save the Green Planet was probably a little better, but not for everyone. Old Boy is awesome.

Don't take it personally, it's just a movie. And since when did "everything" rip off Blade Runner? It has been an influential film in any event. So it didn't do anything for you, it doesn't move me to great heights either, only telling you what I thought. And I thought Natural City stunk. You liked it. So yay for everyone!

I loved OldBoy and am happy that I bought it (it was a blind buy for me), but I would not recommend buying it without seeing, just because as someone else said the subject matter and some of the situation you might not want to revisit. It's hard to make a call with a movie like this not knowing your taste in films.

I'd agree with you completely . . . if I lived on Bizzaro, where everything is opposite.

Oldboy is a must get if not already in your collection... I have not bought Naked City due to some varied reviews...

Naked City?? man, what thread were you reading??

What am I taking personally?

I was just remarking on the whole "such and such rips off Blade Runner" comment. You're not wrong about it - It does kinda want to be Blade Runner. Blade Runner comes to mind watching Natural City... it's hard not to. I've just been hearing it alot for years how this movie and that movie wish they were Blade Runner and I'm just getting tired of hearing about Blade Runner. It wasn't a comment to take a stab at you. I even said that I made the Blade Runner comment about another film and annoyed myself with it. Obviously I didn't mean EVERY single film made wants to be Blade Runner - Parenthood? Happy Gilmore? Rushmore?

old boy is worth the price
but stay the hell away from natural city
complete waste of 2 hrs of my life that I'll never get back

generally I believe one should stay away from current crop of
Korean Sci-fi movie, sure they may have big budgets and some
fancy CGI but just about every one of them are superficial garbage

thanks for the advice, folks!

just picked up old boy, but "stayed the hell away" from natural city (not NAKED city)

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