50 Stunning Asian Movie Posters
It’s fascinating what information can be learned about a movie simply from taking a glance at the movie poster. Skipping past the obvious such as the title and cast, what is really interesting is determining a film’s tone and atmosphere from its poster alone. Is it violent? Funny? Scary? Quite often the poster alone may answer these questions for you.
Not surprisingly, this is not a trait solely unique to North American cinema. While some presentational factors differ from culture to culture, usually the essence of a movie is plainly communicated through its poster no matter what – or where.
Observing design from another culture’s perspective can be a great source of inspiration. Sometimes it takes a completely unique frame of reference to get those creative juices flowing. It is in this spirit that Smashing Magazine has collected 50 impressive Asian movie posters for your illumination and inspiration. We hope you enjoy them.
You may want to take a look at the following related articles:
50 Stunning Asian Movie Posters
The Good, The Bad And The Weird (2008)
Riding Alone For Thousands Of Miles (2005)
Exit The Dragon, Enter The Tiger (1976)
Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance (2002)
Legend Of Dinosaurs And Monster Birds (1977)
References
- Internet Movie Poster Awards
- Internet Movie Database
- Weird Posters
- MonkeyPeaches
- Chinese Movie Posters
Related Posts
You may want to take a look at the following related articles:
Rob
October 30th, 2008 5:12 amwow! truly inspiring
sun
October 30th, 2008 5:19 amI think this one is better than what you listed (‘The Host’ poster).
http://www.impawards.com/2007/host_ver3.html
Frank
October 30th, 2008 5:26 amTime to watch some new movies. ^__^
Elpatator
October 30th, 2008 5:26 amAlways impressive, bur I don’t agree with the “CJ7″ one, in my opinion way too eastrern styled. Thanks for the inspiration and mind traveling !!
Klaas van Wachteren
October 30th, 2008 5:28 amGenius Collection.
A gallery what have been cool.
Loading times are not this sexy :-)
http://www.vinergy.org
Paulo
October 30th, 2008 5:31 amFor God, PLEASE make small posts in RSS. Like PSDTuts
Vincent
October 30th, 2008 5:34 amTruly inspiring posters. I found a few in there I forgot a long time ago, time to visit the video store soon.
AthenaEmily
October 30th, 2008 5:48 amwonderful list!
I am lucky to hv seen most of these movies ;)
devolved
October 30th, 2008 5:49 amI really love asian film as it doesn’t follow the predictable paths that western ones seem to and as we can see it generates some awesome artwork …
Godzilla ftw
TYTỶTT
October 30th, 2008 5:54 amYou had a utterly bad host !
I can’t load them all ! So many blank !
Shawn
October 30th, 2008 6:07 amNote to self: rent the film Kamikazee Girls
Thank you Smashing Magazine!
http://www.keelingdesign.com
Lunik
October 30th, 2008 6:07 amniiice
this one?
http://www.moviesonline.ca/movie-gallery/albums/userpics/poster_sympathy_for_lady_vengeance.jpg
Rodrigo
October 30th, 2008 6:22 amNice collection there. I
though, “The Host” is actualy brazilian, cuz its in portuguese.
Link [adwtf.blogspot.com]
An RSS Subscriber
October 30th, 2008 6:23 amPlease please please, make partial rss feeds!
V44DER
October 30th, 2008 6:31 amGreat Posters! , truly inspiring pictures and they take me back too, Great sense of lighting and composition in these.
Love the old school ones! ..
Aditya
October 30th, 2008 6:41 amNo doubt these are good. What I find sad is how “Asian” has been restricted to only a few countries and south east asian posters have been left out altogether.
hgaines
October 30th, 2008 6:43 amCool list. I have seen and even own several of these movies. Sad to see Casshern didn’t make the list.
mokin
October 30th, 2008 6:57 amArt Of The Devil (2004)
Movie from Thailand
:D
Mini0n
October 30th, 2008 6:57 amNice posters!
One I also like but it isn’t on the lis is Casshern. =)
Shaun
October 30th, 2008 7:38 amWhere are the Bollywood posters or does Asia not include India?
Joseph
October 30th, 2008 7:59 amAkira’s poster was my favorite by far!
Sacha
October 30th, 2008 8:10 amSome nice,some not so nice. It seems like a few of them are not the asian version, though.
My personal favorite is the one for Audition.
Andrew Lindstrom
October 30th, 2008 8:21 amHey everyone. I’m the guy who wrote this post and wanted to thank everyone who has commented.
@sun – That is an awesome poster. “The Host” really hit the nail on the head in the poster department didn’t it? :)
@elpatator – I agree with you that the CJ7 poster is very eastern styled. I included it as I was trying to showcase a broad range of styles.
@shawn – You must rent Kamikaze Girls – such an awesome movie.
@hgaines & Mini0n – Casshern was on the short list but didn’t make it to the final post. It was really hard to narrow it down to 50 posters. Great flick, though. At least on a visual level :)
@Rodrigo – I’m pretty sure “The Host” is not a Brazilian film. Check out the IMDB page :)
@Shaun – Touché. Bollywood posters are absolutely amazing and not to let the cat out of the bag too early but I was hoping to dedicate an entire post to Bollywood posters alone. Whether or not it’s on Smashing Magazine or my own blog is yet to be seen :) That being said I should have included a few none the less.
Shashi
October 30th, 2008 8:29 amIndia produces some 1000-odd films a year, highest in the world. And no Indian film in the entire list?!
hey man
October 30th, 2008 8:36 amthe good the bad and the weird and the host poster are awfully generic movie posters. I wonder what you saw in those that was so good?
Chris McDougall
October 30th, 2008 9:00 amI like the idea for the article since southeast asian movie posters do present different design aesthetics (especially regarding typography since the character sets are very different), but the execution seems strange. Many of the posters shown were made by western graphic designers. And it’s a common mistake, but “Enter the Dragon” and “Game of Death” were US productions!
There’s a ton of good asian movie poster designs so it’s kind of unfortunate that many of them were ignored in favor of the western version. For example, the actual Hong Kong posters and production material for Chungking Express are far superior to the US poster, though it isn’t a bad design at all. Just to make sure that this isn’t a “gripe post,” I do like a lot of the posters chosen whether it was done by a eastern or western designer. The “Enter the Dragon” poster is iconic, though done by a westerner.
skimati
October 30th, 2008 9:08 amthere seems like a whole lot of violence going on in those posters…
syed
October 30th, 2008 9:44 amAkira is the best!
Saj
October 30th, 2008 9:48 amSo India is not part of Asia anymore? Didn’t know that!
Giger
October 30th, 2008 9:51 amSince when did Asia mean only EAST ASIA??? And more specifically China, Japan and Korea??? Asia is a huge continent and the most prolific movie-making country is in Asia – INDIA!
There are some amazing posters from Bollywood! And I’m sure other parts of Asia have ana amazing movie posters too.
Next time you prepare this list, why don’t you just say “50 Stunning Movie Posters from East Asia”? Or the Orient.
Here are some of my faves:
http://whatsnew.mastikamantra.com/2007/11/no-smoking-movie-posters.html
http://img262.imageshack.us/img262/3086/fullvtc20073bag5.jpg
http://thecia.com.au/reviews/n/images/namesake-poster-1.jpg
syed
October 30th, 2008 9:55 amBut are you missing something here? Is asia here refer to china, hong kong and japan only?
posterwire
October 30th, 2008 10:00 amObserving design from another culture’s perspective can be a great source of inspiration. Sometimes it takes a completely unique frame of reference to get those creative juices flowing. It is in this spirit that Smashing Magazine has collected 50 impressive Asian movie posters
Interesting list.
Unfortunately a significant number of the posters you are listing are not “Asian” — they are the domestic U.S. poster art — created by (gasp) U.S. distributors — for Asian films. In some cases, they aren’t even Asian films, such as the U.S. produced film Enter the Dragon.
birdmeat
October 30th, 2008 10:15 amsurprised that I didn’t see “All About Lily Chou-Chou” (or anything Shunji Iwai), or more Wong Kar-Wai movie posters
Leoferr
October 30th, 2008 10:21 amSUGOI!!!
Those are the most beautiful oriental content that I’ve seen.
Clap, clap, clap for you Smashing!
anjhero
October 30th, 2008 10:22 amthis is jus gr8!! nice collection!
Pasha
October 30th, 2008 11:00 amBin Jip it’s the beautiful movie. Natacha Atlas – Gafsa it’s the beautiful song =)
vlad
October 30th, 2008 11:25 amwell smashing mag,u really did it this time.i just luv this post
David
October 30th, 2008 11:43 amSmashing, you can have my first born.
IR
October 30th, 2008 11:48 amwow. Another good site I found is http://infosense.us
Quakeulf
October 30th, 2008 12:28 pmWong Kar Wai is missing out, and concerning the typography a lot of these posters leaves a lot to be desired. Do not, I repeat, do not draw inspiration from some of these movies’ posters’ typography, as they look like the author just had a field day using outer glow and stroke and called it a day.
MaxB
October 30th, 2008 12:58 pmWhy would you create a list of only asian movie posters?
Seriously “stunning” exaggerates both the beauty and creativity of those posters.
I agree some them are good…but most of them are average…
I also disagree with most of the others… there are only a very few “inspirational” ones in this collection… some of them are vintage but thats it.
Without offense, I am slightly disappointed!
hide
October 30th, 2008 1:07 pmThis one
yeah
October 30th, 2008 1:44 pmGreat list man. I really like the lady vengeance poster, among others
Helen Tran
October 30th, 2008 2:31 pmThose who are complaining about the fact that some of the posters were done by U.S. distribution companies: the post states that these are “asian movie” posters, not posters made by asians for their own movies. Of course, this post assumes that these posters draw directly from the culture itself for influence.
However, I do have to agree that some of these posters are not at all inspirational nor have any “Asian culture influence” (whatever that means). Last of all, you should have really included Bollywood posters because India IS part of Asia. Perhaps a better title would have been, “50 Eastern Asian Movie Posters.”
Joshi*Toshi
October 30th, 2008 3:13 pma pretty decent list. a better title would’ve been “50 Oriental Movie Posters”. please do look into other asian countries (eg. Philippines, India)….
Thorsten
October 30th, 2008 3:51 pmStunning, smashing, wuppi-yeah. We are the best best best magazine in the world world world.
Leave these stupid phrases and concentrate on your content. All the rest makes your articles look dumb…
AsceticMonk
October 30th, 2008 5:18 pmNice collection! I am sucker for movie posters. I’ve seen some of the movies in this collections, some are very good movies.
LA
October 30th, 2008 6:22 pm很精彩 很漂亮
basibanget
October 30th, 2008 6:58 pmno indonesian nor malaysian?
gr8pixel
October 30th, 2008 8:01 pmAwesome! Love the dirty grunge designs! :D
gaurav_m
October 30th, 2008 8:21 pmamazing collection to start my day with
alpaca
October 30th, 2008 9:12 pmA completely misleading title. Asian cinemas are not just Bruce Lee and Wong Kar Wai and Kurosawa or Miyazaki. Try googling India, Thailand, Phillipines and Malaysia’s movie posters. And seriously, Japanese horror movie posters style are dime a dozen in Asia.
rahul m
October 30th, 2008 10:03 pmIndian movie posters. Bollywood movie posters are missing…there are few “legends of legend” in Indian movies
xyz
October 30th, 2008 10:18 pmI feel the next post should be titled “50 stunning Indian movie posters”. You will find many inspiring ones from India. Sad that Indian posters were ignored in this post. :(
Jay
October 31st, 2008 12:06 amSlightly disapponted not to find any Indian posters.
Nevertheless, its an impressive collection. Thanks.
speedcu
October 31st, 2008 12:07 amwow great collection!!!
gUiLe
October 31st, 2008 2:11 amgreat, thanks !
Love the old school monsters one :)
protski
October 31st, 2008 2:33 ami thought that you would add Ichi the Killer on the collection, that movie really has some high contrast, anyway, great collection! Sympathy for Lady Vengeance is a beautiful movie on all aspects
Samwise
October 31st, 2008 6:15 amI think your definition of Asian only includes Chinese and Japanese and others like that. I bet there are many Indian movie posters better than those listed above. You should have better considered the country with the largest film industry. Have a look at some of them in case you are ignorant about them…
http://www.impawards.com/intl/india/2006/rang_de_basanti.html
http://www.zorsebol.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/lagaan.jpg
http://www.freewebs.com/deepakmittal/swades.jpg
Quan
October 31st, 2008 6:35 amYou guys forgot Shaolin soccer, Inferno Affair, The mission, exiled and election to new a few. What about Hero?
Samwise
October 31st, 2008 7:24 amI have been a great fan of smashing, but I am dissapointed this time. Take a look at this too..
http://mashedmusings.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/jodha-akbar-wallpaper-14657-5641.jpg
mlopez graphicfusion tucson
October 31st, 2008 10:15 amAwesome list of images. Thanks for compiling these onto one page!
Morgan Grimshaw
October 31st, 2008 12:56 pmgreat roundup! There are some classics in here
Andres
October 31st, 2008 2:21 pmMaybe the title could be “50 Stunning Japanese and Chinese Movie Posters”
Don’t forget Korean, Indian and Iran Movies.
Raj
October 31st, 2008 8:20 pmThis is just half of Asia. Who ever wrote this post forget about the Rest of Asia. Asian Games is for Asian countries. That doesn’t mean countries like China, Japan and Korea is the only participants.
Hey dude Check the map of asia to see how many countries and which country produces the highest number of films in the world.
This is a total crapy list. If you are on Digg, Bury this story.
yf.bba
October 31st, 2008 11:30 pmgood job so many old film with asian
yylee
November 1st, 2008 4:12 am甚好，甚强大
Fahai Media
November 1st, 2008 10:03 amDoes Asian mean Japan or China only, there are more countries in Asia, for God sake stop considering only these two countries. Dont forget India Pakistan. What about these Asian films.
http://passionforcinema.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/ramchand-pakistani.bmp
http://pujathakur.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/khudakeliye.jpg
http://www.watblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/krrish.jpg
http://calcuttaglobalchat.net/calcuttablog/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/naqaab.jpg
candy
November 1st, 2008 2:00 pmI have seen some of the movie. Done nicely.
dev(Www.iHaCK.ASIA)
November 1st, 2008 5:06 pmAll anime asian movie poster is the best
http://Www.iHaCK.ASIA
Ray
November 1st, 2008 6:50 pmI love the art and most of all, I love the films themselves – if you guys haven’t had a chance to see any of it, check it out! Start with “Oldboy” :)
The art and culture within the films might inspire you further.
Sean P. Aune
November 1st, 2008 9:34 pmI was in Tokyo on business when A Tale of Two Sisters was in the theaters. There were two versions to the poster: the one you showed and a non-bloody version. Both versions literally stopped me in the street each time I saw them, they were just absolutely stunning.
mira
November 2nd, 2008 12:28 pmgreat list. i’d like to add Sukiyaki Western Django to the list, as well: http://www.movieposteraddict.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/mpasukiyakiwesterndjangoposterb.jpg
toure
November 2nd, 2008 9:49 pmlifetimemoviedownloads.com
This is #1 Movie Downloads Site. Unlimited Access Over 80 Million Full-Length DVD Quality Movies, Music, Tv Shows, Anime, PC Games and much more
erwin15155
November 2nd, 2008 10:57 pmcool…
Quakeulf
November 3rd, 2008 6:23 amWhat I hate infinite times more than a rushed list of movies for perspiration are spammers who use blog comment forms to advertise for their bullshit sites like toure did two posts above.
Please do a 50 ways to torture and kill spammers-list sometime under “inspiration”. >:3
thelapan
November 3rd, 2008 3:05 pmIt’s just a coincidence or it’s because all the Park Chan-wook’s trilogy movies are really stunning…
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy, & Lady Vengeance
All I know is all the 3 movies are good to watch, plus 3 Iron from Kim Ki-duk too
koew
November 3rd, 2008 9:21 pm@thelapan: You should seriously check out I’m A Cyborg, But That’s OK, a so-called dark comedy Chan-wook Park created after the “Vengance-trilogy”. It was his way of lightening up the mood, somewhat.
Also, I think it was funny that both Sympathy for Lady Vengance (UK title) and Lady Vengance (US title) are the same film, but both posters made it into this post. Great choice!
heather
November 5th, 2008 6:32 ami actually don’t find a lot of the posters impressive..
design
November 6th, 2008 1:15 amCool posters, but there isn’t anything unique about the style of these because they’re Asian.
Indoboy
November 6th, 2008 2:10 amFor me The lists are not asian movie film posters. They are japan and china movie posters. Remember, Asian is not just japan and china. The writer should more deeply and serious make an observation…
ptooey
November 7th, 2008 1:51 pmA decent list… ;p
But you failed to mention the poster and other promo shots I know of (and I’m talking those released for home country, not the crappified US ones) for flic– Nowhere to Hide (2000) [kr]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Nowhere_to_Hide.jpg
krupa
November 9th, 2008 12:13 amTale of two sisters is my favorite.
Rakesh.S
November 9th, 2008 6:57 pmOustaanding !! Unparallel.
Ashok maharaj
November 10th, 2008 3:13 amGood Posters..
Scott
November 12th, 2008 3:52 pmFor crying out loud, people, it’s one man’s opinion! Andrew didn’t claim these were the “50 Greatest Movie Posters in all of Asia EVER”, he just said these were 50 posters advertising Asian films that appealed to him.
All this talk about burying stories on digg, sheesh. Yes, we’re aware that India makes movies, and that Asian cinema is not just restricted to Hong Kong, Japan, Korea and China. We don’t need to be told 20 times! If you are unhappy with how the posters of a particular country have been portrayed or ommited, why not make your own list?
/rant over.
manuel
November 14th, 2008 12:30 amreally nice, shame most of these are japanese, korean or chinese posters.
i like the poster for Twilight Samurai, though its not on the list
Redfield
November 16th, 2008 12:26 pmI’m surprised the poster for The Wig isn’t on here. It’s what compelled me to see the movie. Granted, it was a terrible movie, but the movie poster is still awesome.
小肚生鱼汤
November 17th, 2008 3:13 ami like tnem…i am chinese..
so many greate movies
rajab
November 18th, 2008 1:01 amHow come Mother India or Lagaan is left out. Ridiculous.. :(
Rin
November 22nd, 2008 11:36 pmReally great post.
Shimotsuma Monogatari (or Kamikaze Girls) is a great movie!
hoho
December 16th, 2008 10:39 amlearn english
大米
December 17th, 2008 2:18 amvery nice~ i like it~ thanks for ur collection~
Skilip
December 28th, 2008 10:07 pmWhere’s Ringu ;)?
断峰狼
December 28th, 2008 11:28 pmsome films are so old
Hyojin Kim
January 19th, 2009 10:00 pmActually, some of them on the list are Korean Movie Posters such as ,.
SHAW
January 24th, 2009 3:59 pmwell Dunno about Asian Poster Art, But i’ve seen some of my favorite asian Movies here! i dont care about the design, they’re all great work. i was searching on http://www.allposters.com and didnt found many of these!! could someone tell me where to buy Asian movie posters (Korean and Chinese to be more specific) like lady vengeance, 3-iron, TIME, Old Boy and Audition? send your reply to supershaw021@hotmail.com if you can help me.
thanx for your time anyways.
porche thompson
March 5th, 2009 1:22 pmyucky%
porche thompson
March 5th, 2009 1:23 pmthats ugly
Fu Manchu
May 22nd, 2009 8:16 amthose are exclusively east asian movies. common, i’ve seen far better posters than those on your lists.