I've been a fan of Asian movies for about 10 years, so I've seen a lot of Asian movies.  About a year ago, I decided to join MDL.

The first time I looked at the list of MDL's most popular movies I was surprised.  Some of the most popular movies are movies that I hadn't even heard of.  I have some friends (from a movie forum) who have seen even more Asian movies than me, but they haven't seen these movies either.

Examples:
Korea: 100 Days with Mr. Arrogant, Baby & I, Twenty, A Millionaire's First Love
Japan: Sky of Love, I Give My First Love to You, L-DK, Heroine Disqualified

On the other hand, some movies are very popular on the movie forum, but very obscure on MDL.  Nearly all of my movie friends have seen these movies, but they have fewer than 100 ratings on MDL.
Examples: Woman in the Dunes, Sansho the Bailiff, High and Low, Late Spring, The Killer, Yi Yi

Of course there are movies which are popular on both websites, for example The Man from Nowhere, Oldboy, and Battle Royale.

How can a movie be popular on one website and obscure on another website?  Obviously, these two groups of people are not getting their information about Asian movies from the same source(s).

So, here are my questions:
Where do you get your information about Asian movies?  Which websites do you use?
How do you decide which Asian movies to watch?
Have you seen any of the "obscure on MDL" movies that I mentioned above?

i don’t really watch many movies i’m more of a drama person but i don’t really tend to go on the popularity. if i like the synopsis or cast then i’ll watch it

The difference is rather simple: the movie forum you frequent is targeted at people who watch a lot of movies, who sooner or later begin to watch older movies, classics and festival movies because they run out of the popular and modern ones, or they simply don't like modern mainstream cinema. 

This site is mainly for people who watch dramas. And judging by top popular shows, mdl users tend to watch romance-heavy shows ergo movies like Late Spring or The Killer do not appeal to the majority of this website. 

The same thing happens with 《non-asian》 movies. Depending on which site do you choose, you might find people, majority of whom watched let's say Twilight, or those who don't know what Twilight is and watched Metropolis (1927) instead. 

It's not about the source where the information is taken from. If someone wants to  watch a romance comedy, they will watch a korean romance comedy even if top 500 movies on website they use to look for information is filled with crime and martial arts films from 80's.

On the other hand, if someone watches only movies that are easily accessible on popular streaming websites like kissasian, they will never watch movies like Late Spring simply because none of the popular websites have it. Not everyone likes spending 30 minutes looking for a 60's movie to download, only to find out it's a version dubbed in hindi and with no subs. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  

I think source of information is at least part of the explanation, because you have to know that a movie exists before you can watch it.  Most members of the movie forum don't use MDL or Kissasian, so maybe that's why they haven't seen the movies.  They do watch some modern mainstream movies, but usually they're movies made by well-known directors, or movies that got good reviews or won awards.

How do most people use Kissasian?  Do they browse Kissasian to find something to watch?  Or do they first decide what to watch, then check if Kissasian has it?  I've watched some dramas on Viki, but I don't use Viki to decide what to watch.

I noticed that some (but not all) of the "popular on MDL" movies have actors who were previously in a popular drama, so that might be part of the explanation.

Do you think ads have a big influence on what people watch?  Or do most people ignore ads?

I can't speak for all people and I don't use kissasian too often, but in my case it's any of these situations:

a) I browse some website (douban, mdl, kissasian or whatever) and some movie catches my eye - because it was recently added, reviewed or recommended or any other similar reason. In this case being popular increases  chances of me watching it, because someone had to watch it before writing a review for it. If I can't find it in like 5 minutes, I simply don't watch it. I think many people do it (not too sure). I've seen many comments like 'I usually don't watch crime movies, but I found a mv/read a review/read a synopsis/it had a nice title, so I watched it'
But I also find comments like these:

http://prntscr.com/kmw0g5 
http://prntscr.com/kmw13z (it was a hong kong drama with cantonese audio)

So some people won't watch some movies because they simply don't like the language, even if it's a masterpiece that everyone should see and 95 out of 100 people recommend it.

b) I am in a mood for a particular gendre, so I browse some website (be it a streaming website or like mdl) with attributes, let's say 'korea + action + no romance' and I pick the one that has a nice plot and actors I like

c) I want to watch a particular movie, because, well... I want to watch it (it's a classic, it's a masterpiece, it's a movie by my favourite director, with my favourite actor or whatever) so I search for it, browsing all known websites


My ads on mdl are usually unrelated to drama unless it's a streaming site/netflix/cinema ad. I remember seeing 'Tribes and Empires' advertisement once and it caught my attention. I also checked out some of the movies from ads, but it didn't greatly impact what I wanted to watch. Not to mention many people either use adblock or pay for vip account here, so no ads. 


Also, do an experiment and search stuff like 'japanese/chinese/korean/whatever movie eng subs' on youtube and see for yourself what are the first 10 (most popular) results.
In my case, 'korean movie eng sub' gives me one quasi-porn +18 movie, 100 days with mr arrogant, baby and I and 7 other movies that are either comedies or romances. That says something. 


I think you should wait for more replies from people, maybe ask the same question on feeds?

I just searched for 'korean movie eng sub'  on Youtube, and my results are similar to yours.  The results include 100 Days With Mr Arrogant and Baby and I.  I'm curious how many people actually do this to decide what to watch.  I don't think I've ever done it.

As mentioned above most MDL users are primarily drama watchers. So most movies I've seen being watched are ones that feature popular drama idol/actors. I'm not saying that is the case for everyone but most users I know find movies to watch post drama depression ha ha. So it usually involves their favorite actor/idol from previous dramas. Also you might notice most of those Japanese movies are adapted from Manga/Anime/popular books and also have popular idols. 

A good examples:

Gong Yoo After Goblin became super popular people flocked to watch Train To Busan and Silenced. 

Song Joong Ki after Descendant of the Sun people watched A werewolf boy and Penny Pinchers.

Lee Min Ki after Because This Is My First Life people watched Spellbound and Monster.

The point is I think many people on MDL watch movies just to kill time and fill the void between their favorite popular dramas. Availability/promotion probably does have a lot to do with it too. After dramas hit big you often see the other dramas and movies (Like I mentioned above) being picked up by streaming services. 

That's a good point.  I was thinking a movie becomes popular if the actors are already popular, but it's possible for an actor to become popular later, and then everyone watches the older movie (or it could be a popular actor who becomes even more popular).  Gong Yoo was already very popular from Coffee Prince, but Goblin made him even more popular.

When you say promotion, do you mean promotion on streaming websites?  I've noticed that Viki and DramaFever always have a big poster advertising a new drama or movie.  Do you think those posters influence a lot of people?  Are there any other types of promotion that have a lot of influence?

I didn't notice that the Japanese movies are based on manga.  I guess I don't read enough manga.  I'm more of an anime fan than a manga fan.

It's not really posters but that Viki, Dramafever, Netflix, Kocowa, Crunchyroll, YouTube, etc make shows avalible in foreign markets. If you check website analytics you can see webforums like MDL are accessed mostly by people outside SK/Japan. Simply, if shows are not easily accessible people are less likely to watch/review them. Streaming services and fan subbing services are a huge influence in that way. 

I've been a very long time drama watcher and it's just trends I've noticed. When dramas hit big (especially internationally) people watch similar dramas or related works of the stars. So networks rebroadcast older media and streaming services with promote those older shows they already have licensed or get the license for the similar/related works from the actors idols. 

Also considering that the majority of movie/drama watchers are here for casual entertainment or general fans. There are some amazing writer's and critics but most are just genre fans. I myself like fun fluffy romantic comedies. I don't over analyze much and often review according to what I find entertaining which is very often not quality productions. I can't speak for everyone but these are the major trends I see. 

 

most of the time poster and synopsis can either pull me in or ward me off lmao

if im 50:50 about it then i look at the actor/actress (that way i might at least enjoy the actress) the and going trhu comment

when i first started watching japanese movie i just watch whatever my fav actress are in lmao

sometimes i also browse movie/drama by director/writer

sometimes i just gambled it outta boredom

edit :

forgot some question

1) i mostly used asianwiki.com just to look at the movie/drama information, often go to ganool to check if any good movie pop up, there is also this website kumpulbagi where i can just search whatever movie/drama i had in mind (too bad our dick govt blocked it), i also used indowebster and filmku.net. nowadays im mostly just scrapping what i can find on google. ah there is also pahe.in


3) heard of those jap ones, never watch them. koizora summary already scare the shit outta me