2005 BEST OF LIST

If the thought of anther 2005 "Best of" makes you want to shoot yourself...oops! This blog needs every single reader it can get or Variety will send Army Archerd to my house, programmed to kill me! And he'll do it too, because that's how crazy he is.

But because you didn't ask for it....KAIJU SHAKEDOWN'S LIST OF THE BEST OF ASIAN FILM IN 2005

BEST MOVIE
KOREAN MADNESS. It's short, it's funny, it's like KAMIKAZE GIRLS meets HANA & ALICE with better choreography than RENT, THE PRODUCERS and PERHAPS LOVE all put together. You can go watch it here.

BEST WAY TO BORE AN AUDIENCE
ANTARCTIC JOURNAL. "See, in the movie these guys are in the Antarctic and they walk in the snow. They walk and they walk and they walk. Then they find a hut!" Uh, does anything else happen? "Sometimes they're in a tent."

BEST ONSCREEN VOMIT
DRINK, DRANK, DRUNK. Derek Yee followed up his harrowing and accomplished ONE NIGHT IN MONGKOK with this epic ode to the onscreen hurling of stomach contents. I lost count after the fifth time Daniel Wu tossed his cookies. And speaking of Daniel Wu...

BEST ACTOR
If by "Best Actor" you mean "Guy who's been in every single movie this year" then that would be Daniel Wu. Aided and abetted by a law requiring every movie producer in Hong Kong to cast him in their film, Daniel Wu was in 5 movies this year, down from last year's high of 7.

BEST INSPIRATIONAL MOVIE ABOUT THE HANDICAPPED
THE LATE BLOOMER. Just knowing that even people confined to a wheelchair with MS can still get it together and become serial killers offers hope to millions of the differently abled.

BEST REMAKES
With remakes of THE GODFATHER (SARKAR), OLDBOY (ZINDA), MAN ON FIRE (EK AJNABEE) and FIGHT CLUB (FIGHT CLUB) in 2005, Bollywood takes this prize hands down.

BEST BOSSES
What you really want in a boss is consistency, and when they moved to a new company a lot of people worried that they might go a-changing. Don't sweat it, Harvey and Bob Weinstein are still up to the same tricks over at The Weinstein Company: acquiring Asian product and sticking it on the shelf. Let's all hope they start re-editing their acquisitions soon or I'll lose my faith in them.

BEST BRIDESMAID
Always a bridesmaid, never a bride: it's Wu Jing! He's been playing third fiddle in movies since 2001 but I wouldn't be surprised if you could find him in the background of movies going all the way back to 1946. This year's role: the cool bad guy in SHA PO LANG. He's talented, he's a good actor, so why can't he land a lead role? I guess he just ain't marriage material.

BEST MUSICAL NUMBER
YAJI AND KITA: THE MIDNIGHT PILGRIMS. The flick starts off in black and white, with a brief joke about Tetris (using corpses), a quick lecture on the poisonous eyebrows of elephants, and then, suddenly, YAJI AND KITA launches into full color and song 'n dance, simultaneously. With lyrics like, "I'm Gaaaaaaay!" and a motorcycle ride into the future, there's no doubt that this is the musical number to beat in 2005.

WORST MUSICAL NUMBER
The SIN CITY knock-off number over the titles of Ram Gopal Varma's JAMES.

BEST ACTION SCENE
THE MYTH. Jackie takes on a pack of Indian cops in a glue trap factory and proves he can still pull out the fun stunts when it counts.

WORST ACTION SCENE
THE MYTH. The laborious finale was larded with bad CGI the way a stomach-cramping plate of nachos is drowned in processed cheez whiz and cheap hamburger meat.

BEST CAREER COMEBACK
Sammo Hung in SHA PO LANG. The Sammo-lator comes storming back into the biz like a pissed off refrigerator covered with jailhouse tats.

BEST CAREER TURNAROUND
Donnie Yen in SHA PO LANG. Striking only three or four of his patented pretty boy poses in the entire film, Donnie Yen demonstrates that he can turn the fancy lad dial down to zero and deliver the goods when necessary.

BEST PLACE TO HOLD A CONVERSATION
The roof of a skyscraper according to SHA PO LANG. Do these guys ever meet in a Starbucks to chat like regular people? And you know they take the stairs, too.

BEST SPECIAL EFFECT
The Sunekosuri in Takashi Miike's THE GREAT YOKAI WAR. Little more than a sock puppet, and at times just a stuffed doll, this little booger delivers the most heart-rending performance of any special effect I've ever seen and that includes Gollum and King Kong.

BEST PRODUCT PLACEMENT
Takashi Miike is the new John Waters not because of his grossness, but because of his good-natured embrace of bad taste. At the climax of THE GREAT YOKAI WAR when the Kirin Ichiban corporate logo comes to life and springs into the sky, Miike has his 11 year old hero hop on board and shout "Hooray!" This manages to top the random moment a few scenes back when a cooler full of Kirin Ichiban beer with magical powers falls out of the sky. Not since WAYNE'S WORLD has selling out been so fun.

BEST DRESSED
It's a tie between Lee Byung-Heong in A BITTERSWEET LIFE and Lee Yong-Ae in SYMPATHY FOR LADY VENGEANCE. Whether it's Lee's muted slate suits, or his downscale earth tone J. Crew "Working Man's" collection outfits, whatever he wears is just perfect for mass blood-letting and mayhem. In her scarlet eye shadow and her vintage 60's dresses, Lee Yong-Ae is definitely dressed to kill right down to her designer, double-barreled pistol. And that high-collared leather coat? Meow!

BEST CRYBABIES
Korea takes this one. When Im Sang-Soo wanted to release THE PRESIDENT'S LAST BANG about the assassination of President Park the dead president's daughter took him to court and got an injunction forcing the re-editing of the movie because she was worried it might hurt her political career. Then, when Yoon Jong-Bin submitted a script about warm friendships in the army to the Defense Department in order to film his UNFORGIVEN on a military base they were more than happy to grant him his wish. When he swapped scripts on them and instead shot a harrowing tale of military brutality they were a little less thrilled and sued. The case is still pending.

BEST UNMADE MOVIE
Jang Jun-Hwan, the genius behind SAVE THE GREEN PLANET, has spent most of 2005 locked in a hotel room, writing and re-writing his script about a superhero. A superhero movie from the man who brought us the alien invasion of STGP? I'm there.