I`m not a great fan of movies that have subtitles, I find it takes something away from the movie for me, of course there are exceptions like "Life Is Beautiful" [Italy], "The Bandit Queen" [India],"Luminescent Moss" [Japan] and "Babettes Feast" [Denmark].

The one country that produces movies that I can watch and enjoy everytime subtitles and all is China. I recently watched "Hero", well I watched it a few times, and found it to be not so much a movie but more a visual poem.

One of the great things about Chinese movies, particulary epics, is the fact that there is no feeling of computer generated scenes, every shot looks so real and stylish. I often get scornful of movies from western countries when they try and show scenes of thousands of people and it looks so fake but with Chinese movies it`s either so well done or there are in fact thousands in the scene.

I was also was fortunate to view "Shaolin Soccor" a couple of days ago and what fun it was! If you haven`t seen either movie I would encourage anyone to get out and watch them.

Another Chinese movie that I can`t recall the name of has one of the funniest fighting scenes in it I`ve seen. I can only recall that the fight was in a kitchen and various foods were used as weapons, like a swordfish etc. Anyone know the name?

That kitchen fight scene sounds familiar ("Kung Fu Hustle" perhaps?) but I can't say for sure. I do love films from China, Hong Kong, Korea and Japan. Probably became addicted to them from watching anime. But I prefer subtitles to dubbing, and have been so used to them that I feel cheated when I watch an Asian film that doesn't have subtitles.

There are so many amazing Asian films that provide a break from the predictable Hollywood movies. I especially enjoy the films of Zhang Ziyi and the Korean horror/ suspense films. Recently I started watching Asian romantic comedies and crime/explotation films from the '70s. "Oldboy" and "2046" from last year were excellent Asian movies.