A while ago A poster went around Reddit And got a bit of attention I was surprised that A friend of mine instantly recognized it as Chinese With the use of white, negative space It's only then, I realized that Different countries approach posters very differently I never realized that Because good posters are often underappreciated We don't tend to notice the good ones It's usually the bad ones that catch our eye So today, let me purge my ignorance And explore the world of Asian movie posters Posters from China, Japan, and South Korea Let's see what each country's general design trend is And highlight a few posters that I personally love Keep in mind that I'm not a graphic designer I only made a few posters for my own films So take my opinions with a grain of salt I'll stick to mostly recent films Since there really isn't much to talk about With regards to the infamous "Photoshop" age Everyone suffered back then Like, why is this guy transparent...? So, let's give them the admiration They rightly deserve If you look up Chinese posters on Google You'd find a lot of cases of plagiarism Unlike Japan and Korea The Chinese film market really only became big In the past decade or so The market has yet to value posters as an
art form As with any starting player With no budget And even less time The best an overworked, underpaid graphic designer can muster Is to copy someone Who best to copy Than the biggest player in the world, Hollywood? The only problem Is that Hollywood blockbuster posters in general suck pretty hard They are notoriously unimaginative As a result Many Chinese posters end up feeling Both cheap and uninspired Wandering Earth's main poster is atrocious I hate posters where characters just stand there Doing nothing It's just an illustrated list of actors And a badly photoshopped one at that But its scenic posters are pretty amazing After all, the actors in the film aren’t the draw It is the world-building But my favorite is this one In which it captures the main selling point of the film Being an adaptation of the Chinese Sci-Fi classic Look at those old and worn out pages Stabled together Capturing that post-apocalyptic feel of the film Where society is barely functional But my favorite is how it illustrates the story The story of Earth leaving the solar system behind On this image, every planet is listed Except for Earth Intriguingly missing, leaving an empty spot That's a sick concept if you ask me Much like this poster When Chinese posters get good They get REALLY good Most of the best Chinese posters out there Are all design by one man and his company Huang Hai Their posters are beautifully poetic And very visually striking The Golden Era tells the story of a woman activist and novelist Living in wartime China The tilt-shift effect and the high angle shot Looks down onto her, as if she's a miniature model The seemingly random splashes of ink Paints the big world she's living in Signifying the chaotic time the film is set in And signifies how much influence her, as a writer Has on the world Oh, and the international poster is also really good My favorite Huang Hai poster has to be Masters in Forbidden City It's a film about museum workers Repairing and restoring historical relics The poster relies almost solely on the beauty of these artifacts What makes this poster special Is here This is what Chinese people describe as "Drawing the eye of the dragon" Giving life to an art piece The shape of this worker is tiny Insignificant While the relic is immense It captures the feeling of restoration perfectly It is a delicate and tedious task It takes sometimes years just to repair one relic Yet it also captures that feeling of history A moment in time As the tagline suggests Big history, Small craftsmen Of course, Huang Hai isn't the only one who makes good posters Brotherhood of Blades 2 is visually beautiful But what's interesting is how small the actress is Yang Mi is a very high profile star in Mainland China And is absolutely someone to draw in more box office revenue The decision to leave her so tiny is bold, to say the least But it works The beautiful composition draws you in The empty space leaving you wanting for more So you read the text That's how you find out who she is And once you went through this process You are not forgetting this poster ever again Many Chinese animations also have great posters I'm guessing it's because the studio already knows how to draw Big Fish and Begonia's poster is just... Wow But its quaint character posters are also really beautiful Makes me wish the entire film looks like this instead White Snake has a spectacular hand-drawn poster Even if it doesn't really reflect the film's art style Its international poster however Is next level White Snake is a story about seeing humanities in monsters The eye of a snake monster seeing its past memories And tearing up Is the perfect visual summary In recent years Great posters became a hot topic in China More and more people are paying attention to this art form If these beautiful posters for Ghibli movie re-release are any indication The Chinese poster industry Is going to be something very special Now let's travel to Japan In terms of general design trend Japanese live-action films love this manga panel design It's hard to make screengrabs look good in posters As it tends to look flat, busy, and out of place But Japanese poster designs mastered it And it is very recognizably Japanese You rarely see other countries do this More often than not, I find it to be very pleasing Even if it's very overused Still, Japan is not immune to Mount Rushmore posters At its best, you have this Which is aesthetically pleasing But otherwise lacking in metaphor At least I don't see it At worse, you have this I don't know why Anime and manga adaptations tend to come with The worse posters This is worse than Wandering Earth It does have one exception: The poster for Death Note focuses on the two main characters Or rather, the pitch-perfect recreation of them As if reassuring the audience That this is more than a cosplay But the one I like is the one featuring Light Backlit Dark clothes on dark background It's sinister But the real highlight is the apple The symbol of sin Is it floating? Or is it falling? Or is it holding up by an invisible being In this composition Your eyes jump between Light's face His hand And the apple The ambiguity is intriguing But also symbolizes Light as a character Perfectly Still, my favorite live-action Japanese poster Has to be this one Instead of going for movements like most posters This film goes for stillness With the two birds resting on the hilt of a sword It feels both calming And foreboding Makes even more sense when you realize The film features a blind swordsman But really When it comes to Japanese cinema Animated movies are the current king Your Name's poster is all-around well done Low Angle to show off the beautiful sky Something that Makoto Shinkai is known for Image splits in half while remaining connected Reflecting on the film's parallel storylines What I'm always amazed by, however Is the text layout Japanese posters almost always have this uncanny ability To make a wall of text look clean Here's the English version for comparison The poster for The Journalist took it to the extreme As the title suggests It's a film about investigative journalism It cleverly uses the text in the format of a newspaper To tell you the title The hook The list of actors And the time it'll be in theatres All while using the gaps to highlight the two characters Of course, there are also split panels down the bottom It is a Japanese film after all Back to Anime Hello World is a film about preserving old culture Through the use of technology The upper, technology-themed part of the image Is mirrored in the bottom half with nature and older architecture Representing the struggle between the two At the bottom, two characters hold hands Showing the true message of the film That the connection of human heart is the key The poster for A Silent Voice doesn't seem very special Outside of its fantastic art style But it does have one neat thing And it's pretty obvious when you see it Shoko, the girl here Is the only one who's not facing left She's almost, but not quite looking at the camera In fact, she's looking at nothing She's in her little own world In the film, Shoko is deaf And this poster, through one image Captures her emotional isolation from other people And then, there is Tokyo Godfathers Characters stacking on top of chaotically arranged skyscrapers Representing their frantic journey through Tokyo But did you notice that everything is arranged In the shape of a Christmas tree Finally, there is Paprika A film about dreams And just like its premise The poster is visually crazy If not a bit seductive The poster overlays this madness of dreams Onto the body of the main character In the style similar to traditional Japanese
tattoo Like every dream has an effect on your body Imprinting itself onto your identity I, however, prefer the DVD cover The close up of the face covered in madness With the eyes standing out Highlighted by the shape of the hair You can't help but stare at it When your eyes meet It draws you in And now You are in her mind In her dreams Mesmerizing I know I said I don't like Mount Rushmore posters But man, the South Korean film industry sure makes it work Faces are the main trend of recent Korean movie posters But it's not just faces on posters There's always something interesting going on And you can usually guess the theme or plot of the movie Oldboy has this uneven close up versus medium split They feel conflicting, contrasting Yet because of the size differences They feel distant Like they are plotting something against each other What a way to show conflicts Forgotten is the total opposite It nearly perfectly matches the two faces Making it uncomfortable to look at Just like the poster The movie is a total mindf*ck Dealing with multiple identities of multiple people All entangled into one unifying conspiracy Monster took a familiar big head poster concept And throws a twist into it The two heads along with the striking arm and claw Creates a triangle for your eyes to wander back and forth With a title like this It just makes you wonder WHO is the monster? The girl who's holding him by the neck? Or the man who's smirking while all this is happening? Now that's not saying there aren't generic big head posters But even when they are generic There's usually a strong composition To prevent it from being bad Some times, movies would take the big head concept And use it on medium or wide shots People just stand there Graduation photo style And just like their big head counterpart The good ones always have a twist One of the most memorable ones Is A Tale of Two Sisters What a poster The image splits into two parts With the parents dressed in black on top Mirrored by the two sisters dressed in white The immediate interest is the blood all over the two But did you noticed the two sisters Are in very similar gestures to their parents? One with her back straight The other with one hand to the side? But instead of confident and assertive The sisters look weak and lifeless As if they are puppets of their parents Of course, who can forget about Parasite Which has this poster The feet at the bottom Is, of course, the biggest interest point It also puts the entire image off balance Giving it a twisted feel that matches with the film itself But the group itself is also intriguing It contains two families One rich, one poor How can you tell? Well, the poor family members aren't wearing shoes Overall, Korean posters appear to be the most consistent Among the three countries, we discussed today Although at times It does get pretty samey But rarely is a poster downright bad That speaks to the overall robustness Of South Korean cinema Respect If there's ever a picture that worths a thousand words That picture would've been a poster Condensing an entire script Distilling an entire movie Down to one single frame That is an art I took the liberty to redesign the poster for Pure Hearts See how it changes your expectation And the perception of the film? I bet at this moment Every single one of you still remembers most posters Shown in this video And many of you became curious about the movies Simply because of the posters I showed That's the power of a good poster Next time When you walk past one Give it a closer look On that image Are details, crafted by artists
