Why are Japanese films so terrible?

A Taxing Woman 2xDVD edition
Tanpopo 2xDVD edition
Eureka DVD
Seishun Dendekedekedeke (The Rocking Horsemen?) DVD

The Itami special editions came out in celebration of his death (!?!), the Eureka DVD is an aspect remaster from the crummy version from a few years ago, and the last one is one of my favorite movies that hasn't been exported (no subtitles, eek)... starring an 18y/o Tadanobu Asano in his first studio role for all you Miike nuts.

I'm open to any drama/comedy/thriller (non-monster, non-horror, non-samurai, non-yakuza, non-anime please!) recommendations.

I just wanted to point out the simply wonderful fact that the blob of rape-fetishist-peeping-top semen in which the title credit for "Ichi the Killer" appears is, in fact, REAL HUMAN SEMEN.

And Tsukamoto "donated" it.

Just, you know, FYI...

:)

But me, I've even seen it a few times IN REAL LIFE.

Top that, tough guy...

They're all so good, in different ways. _Ikiru_'s dying bueauracrat, with
his last redemptive quest to build a playground for inner city children,
really exemplifies the idea that any ordinary person can find it in
themselves to struggle against injustice, and win a personal victory
against the night.

Or how about _Seven Samurai_'s vagabond warriors, lovable, stern, mostly
over-the-hill men who find it in themselves to fight for a cause not their
own, against suicidal odds. In the hands of another director, it would just
be another action-adventure. But leave it to Kurosawa to keenly zoom in
on the human element, the internal struggles that will strike a chord with
anyone that has a pulse, in any country, any era. Witness the youngest
samurai, determined to make a name for himself, fearless in battle;
yet totally uncertain and confused when faced with the lust of a village
waif.

Kurosawa Movies I Haven't Seen:
Madadayo (1993)
Dodesukaden
Red Beard
High And Low
Scandal
The Quiet Duel
I Live In Fear (also Record Of A Living Being)
Drunken Angel

which one of these should I watch first?

This thread neds more Kiyoshi Kurosawa, because Pulse and Retribution are awesome and I really want to see Cure.

err, "needs." Apologies to Ned.

anyone know an Ichikawa film based on Mishima, called Conflagration? May see tonight.

I really enjoyed Miike's The Bird People in China. I'm not really even sure if it's a good movie or if the concepts just resonate w/ me. Lots of great suggestions on this thread. Will bookmark!

well, Voice is underwhelmed by this 10-hour revival:

http://daily.greencine.com/archives/006393.html

Seen a few films on NFT's Japanese Gems season, which is now near its end.

Conflagration was one of them. I found Oshima's Ceremony to be a far more faithful expression of Mishima's dissatisfaction with the way Japan went after WWII (even if politically they are at polar opposites of the spectrum). Ichikawa's film is too literal, with its moments.

Other highlights => Kurosawa's Ikiru, feeling drained this morning.

Ikiru was good but it dragged at the end.

Ikiru never dragged for me. My issues, if any, were with the basic story construction: local government never gets anything done, the world of politics hand-in-hand with gangsters, etc. which might've been saying something in a world recently ravaged by war but now simply feeds into everyone's cynicism these days. But the film had this (surely, even now) combination of hard iron laughs and fighting back the tears moments (I failed at this).

The switching of straight melodrama to recounting the struggle after Watanabe's death, using the tricks in Rashomon, suggesting that Watanabe wasn't -- just maybe -- as heroic really lifted the whole thing to some place else.

The acting as well...I don't have much of an appreciation of it, but recounting all I've seen I enjoyed almost every performance.

I only saw Black Rain at this particular NFT JPfest, wish I'd seen some of the others now. I did see Death Note 1&2 at the ICA to make up for it though.

Every time this thread is revived I seethe inwardly at the stupidity of the thread title.

Ikiru is great!

Saw the Seven Samurai the other day, but my two favourite samurai both got killed - the cool one and the crazy one. I thought this was unnecessary.

Stray Dog is also good!

Ha Matt! The thread starter was there last night at the same screening :-)

I think the two Ichikawa films were disappointing. Really Actor's Revenge is pretty incredible but I wonder if its a one off. The one Imamura flick I saw was nice but next to Oshima and Kurosawa its a lot of meh. Missed the Suzuki yakuza stuff.

That is probably the one really great season the NFT have got on now for the next 2-3 months. August looks a bit lame.

Miracle Fortress is another good Kurosawa movie.

(But Ikiru is my favourite, even though i agree it dragged at the end)

heh Miracle Fortress.. it's Hidden Fortress)

Anyone have any thoughts on Marebito? Just saw it, and thought it was spectacular, oddly terrifying and contemplative at the same time.

Netflix has made finding these films so much easier, which in some strange way almost diminishes their impact. I doubt I would have been quite so amazed by Tetsuo if I hadn't watched it after finding it shoved behind other stuff in a shitty small town video store.

It's interesting that Japan has produced the greatest film ever made (Ran) as well as the worst (Pinch Runner).

The bits of Ran I saw put me off Kurosawa until recently.

anyone seen Kaneto Shindo's The Island?

http://www.filmlinc.com/wrt/onsale/kawakita/theislandakanakedisland.html

Kiyoshi Kurosawa really should be on this thread more. Just watched Doppleganger and it was fantastic.

so is Charisma, on the Kurosawa tip.

I also got around to Funky Forest: The First Contact a few weeks ago. It's about twice as long as it needs to be but totally worthwhile for the cronenberg gross-outs and bjorkish sequences. Haven't seen Taste of Tea yet, which I've heard is Katsuhito Ishii's best.

Londoners! Check out the Pink Films season at the BFI next month : http://www.bfi.org.uk/whatson/bfi_southbank/film_programme/december_seasons/wild_japan

During the 1960s and 1970s Japanese film-makers produced a series of films of unprecedented sexual candour. Returning to this legendary period of 'pink films', Matt Palmer and Jasper Sharp celebrate the aesthetic achievements of these erotic masterpieces.

The inclusion of Koji Wakamatsu's Secrets Behind the Wall in the 1965 Berlin International Film Festival sparked widespread indignation from the Japanese authorities. Softcore, independent, low-budget films of its type came to be known as pink films and these movies, although enormously popular in Japan, were deemed totally unsuitable for export. International exposure of Wakamatsu's film, with its lurid sexual content, was considered to be nationally shaming.

In truth, the sexual preoccupations of Wakamatsu's movie were indicative of a rising and unstoppable tide. The first Japanese screen kiss came late (in 1946) but only a decade later a cycle of taiyozoku (or 'Sun Tribe Films'), which centred around the decadent generation of post-war Japanese teens, would push the boundaries of screen eroticism beyond anything seen in American cinema of the same period. In the mid-1960s, against a backdrop of ever-increasing independent pink film production, highly regarded film-makers Kaneto Shindo and Hiroshi Teshigahara would produce two masterpieces - Onibaba and Woman of the Dunes - which shocked international audiences with their sexual candour.

Later in the 1960s, as independent sex film production threatened to swamp the Japanese film market entirely, the Nikkatsu studio launched its glorious roman porno (softcore 'romantic pornography') strand of movies. A slew of highly talented directors - Noboru Tanaka, Masaru Konuma and Tatsumi Kumashiro included - used reasonable budgets and Nikkatsu studio stars to create some of the most memorable and artistic sex films in cinema history.

Finally, in 1976, Nagisa Oshima would go hardcore for In the Realm of the Senses, a film that represented a direct attack on the values and censorship policies of the Japanese state itself. This aspect of Oshima's masterpiece was, in fact, representative of a political dimension that had underpinned a large number of the Japanese sex films produced in the preceding years.

This political element was allied to a staggering consistency of aesthetic quality and further complemented by the unprecedented involvement of a high number of talented and respected directors working within the sex-film field. The result of these factors was, between 1964 and 1976, the most sustained output of high quality erotic cinema from any country in any era.

This season offers a provocative, challenging and thrilling journey straight back into the heart of this legendary period of Japanese sex film production.

Black Rose Ascension
Sun 7 Dec 20:30 NFT3
Fri 12 Dec 21:00 NFT1
The Japanese softcore equivalent of Boogie Nights.

Blue Film Woman
Wed 17 Dec 18:20 NFT2
Sat 20 Dec 20:50 NFT2
Infamously rare, psychedelic portrait of swinging Tokyo.

Crazed Fruit
Tue 2 Dec 20:40 NFT3
Fri 5 Dec 20:40 NFT2
Groundbreaking rediscovered classic rich in breezy cinematic style and raging passions.

Gushing Prayer
Sat 6 Dec 20:45 NFT1
A jaded young woman embarks on an odyssey of self-discovery.

In the Realm of the Senses
Thu 4 Dec 20:40 NFT1
Sun 7 Dec 18:10 NFT3
Tue 9 Dec 20:40 NFT1
The most famous Japanese sex film in history.

Japanese Cinema for Busy People II Special: The History and Development of Japanese Pink Film
Wed 3 Dec 18:30 The Japan Foundation, London
Don't miss this special lecture, a supplement to the successful series Japanese Cinema for Busy People II.

Onibaba
Tue 16 Dec 20:45 NFT1
Sun 21 Dec 18:30 NFT1
Kaneto Shindo's dark, sensual epic remains excessive, hypnotic cinema.

The Pornographers
Mon 22 Dec 20:30 NFT3
Tue 30 Dec 20:30 NFT2
Shohei Imamura's pitch-black absurdist comedy.

Secrets Behind the Wall
Tue 23 Dec 20:50 NFT2
Sun 28 Dec 20:50 NFT2
Claustrophobic thriller from the 'Godfather of Pink Film'.

The Softcore Auteur
Tue 2 Dec 18:00 NFT3
Discussion of art-house and erotic cinema's intriguingly open relationship.

Watcher in the Attic
Sun 21 Dec 20:50 NFT1
Sat 27 Dec 18:30 NFT1
A voyeuristic landlord observes the encounters taking place in his Tokyo boarding house.

Wife To Be Sacrificed
Mon 8 Dec 20:40 NFT2
Sun 14 Dec 18:20 NFT2
Highly disturbing and gorgeously shot hallucinatory tour-de-force.

A Woman Called Sada Abe
Mon 1 Dec 18:40 NFT2
Wed 10 Dec 20:30 NFT3
Handsomely mounted, intense precursor to In the Realm of the Senses.

Woman of the Dunes
Thu 18 Dec 20:30 NFT1
Sat 27 Dec 20:20 NFT2
Mon 29 Dec 20:30 NFT1
Established masterpiece of world cinema possessing a palpable, astounding physicality.

Woods are Wet
Sun 14 Dec 20:50 NFT1
Wed 17 Dec 20:45 NFT1
A rare chance to see Tatsumi Kumashiro's jaw-droppingly extreme film.

just watched taste of tea again

so amazing

katsuhito ishii is the noizest director

especially funky forest

Been watching a lot lately: Kiju Yoshida has been one of my late-2011 discoveries, due to Eros Plus Massacre. Just not heard of the guy before. The story - two students in 60s Tokyo research on former anarcho agitator who is killed on the back of chaos post-earthquake in 20s Japan - seems thin, but actually this is what cinema was surely invented for. Great use of continous backwards-and-forwards chronology, the framing where people are seen at the edge actually fits the whole narrative of characters on the margin trying to carve a 'space' for themselves, and some incredible staging, highlight is 5-10 min row between Sakae and one of his lovers in the house, culminating in the attempted murder.

Won't be to everyone's tastes, its long (but the meandering is integral to its effect) - and it is anti-Ozu, so doubt there will be any revivals soon, but have a go sometime.

Other good things I've seen are Toshio Matsumoto (as Milton talks about above, all of the shorts are on Ubu btw, although I only really liked 'for the damaged right eye', a companion piece to Funeral Parade of Roses)

Making my way through the films of Masahiro Shinoda

Watched this last night, fantastic:

http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/harakiri/

The samurai duel near the end, shot amongst grass swaying in the wind, is a sequence of pure cinema, image/sound/performance all working together. The anti-hierachy politics and complicating of the samurai code is typical of that early sixties quasi-Marxist strain of Japanese cinema (eg Onibaba, Pitfall) that I find so intense, and so inspiring.

Yeah that's a classic, love Kobayashi's Kwaidan as well. Some great staging and sets on it. The song in the third story is just some of the best music set to film that I've seen lately.

Get that inspired feeling from the booklet that comes w/the DVD, which has a good interview w/Kobayashi, talking about his films but most of it devoted to Harakiri. A few comments that show a lot of integrity and humility (his insistence that his films are really collaborative) and his debt to Takemitsu's scores.

'for the damaged right eye'

that's a great one. though I like 'Atman' as a study, and 'White Hole' is incredible for the electronic music by Yuasa, and 'KI or BREATHING' is a little slow but ends up working because of the Takemitsu score. I still haven't seen 'Funeral Parade of Roses' yet -- it looks so amazing

julio, have you seen Shinoda's 'Petrified Forest'? That one has such a great Takemitsu I'm thinking of hunting it down

Not seen that. I was just looking at his Samurai Spy and the credits have this really spiky theme by Takemitsu. It is something like spy music, if spy films were creation of medieval Japan, if you see what I mean.

I'm finding one delight after another with Toru. Great to actually hear these with the images they were designed for (and they really feel designed, not tacked on). Wish I could get that w/Morricone but I don't think I ever come across any of the films he soundtracked in the 70s, so only the Leone/spaghetti stuff for the moment, but it reminds me I have to see those films.

my favorite Takemitsu = his scores, the fusion with his sources go so deep that by the end you nearly feel that Monteverdi or Bach or John Barry or Ligeti or the Shadows or whatever must have been Japanese

Morricone's weirder 70's scores were mostly for bad films like 'Exorcist II', where he just clearly felt free to do whatever without repercussion but it does mean limited rewards when hunting down the films to see the music in context. Have a feeling that is not true of Toru. I'm saving 'Rikyu' for some special night, that is my favorite score of his

Yeah, you really feel he's delved deep into his sources, so skillful he is at adapting them for whatever scene.

Someone needs to write about these soundtracks, good opportunity now that the films themselves are more available (not sure if this ws the case 5 years ago). And he is fairly unique in that many people would then say he wasn't ignored at all, that his orchestral works get a fair hearing. The argument needs to be made that the works for the hall don't have as much pay-off.

Bet Morricone is jealous tho'. He's always tried to say that he really is a COMPOSER. When, no, I'd say he's written incredible music, as orig as anybody's in the 20th century, its just that the space for these happen to be shared with the images.

as orig as anybody's in the 20th century

uhm

japanese new wave is quite widely available now, there was almost nothing a few years ago when i was interested in this stuff

funeral parade is v interesting, possibly not 'great' but more than a historical curiosity

What are you talking about, man? Funeral Parade of Roses is most definitely 'great'. In fact, even that I would say was an understatement.

no it isn't

i think ichikawa was maybe the 'greatest' filmmaker of this period but he was temperamentally from an older generation

oh and seijun suzuki was brilliant and needs defending from the unfortunate patronage tarantino and that ilk

Accrding to wiki Ichikawa made no films from '67 till '71, which is the period Matsumoto was active in as a feature filmmaker.

Not sure about scaling the er, greatness of FPR but there were few films made in '69 that were better. You can put it in another way: its a better adaptation of Oedipus Rex than that made by Pasolini.

Anyone seen 'Pitfall'? I want it but it's 'spensive on Amazon.

Pitfall is gd - excellent commentary track on the Masters of Cinema DVD by Tony Ryans - but a bit more socially realist than either Face of Another or Woman of the Dunes