Why are Japanese films so terrible?

hmm, well I would head to the torrentosphere then.

also the films are on criterion's hulu plus channel.

The what what?

oh, you britishers.

http://www.hulu.com/movies/criterion

Has anyone seen Miike's Big Bang Love, Juvenile A? It's supposed to be a slow, moody, overtly homoerotic Brecht/Genet prison thing, which sounds awesome, but I've been burned before.

Can only be watched from the US.

big bang love is great, def favorite miike

I saw Sion Sono's latest, Why Don't You Play In Hell, last night, wrote a bit about it here: http://centrifugue.blogspot.com/2014/04/cphpix-day-2-jealousy-why-dont-you-play.html Short version: It is mad, but fun and really well made. I need to see more Sono.

I've also seen Miike's 13 Assasins on Mubi. My first Miike. Don't know how much I feel the need to see more.

At least see The Bird People in China! Trust me, you won't regret it.

I love Bird People Of China. Possibly my favourite by him. I love that crazy drug scene that sticks out like nothing else in the film.

We were talking about Sono on the 2005 - present horror film thread, this is my rundown of his films I've seen...
ok lets all shit our pants to something new: post 2005 horror film thread

> I've also seen Miike's 13 Assasins on Mubi. My first Miike. Don't know how much I feel the need to see more.

i liked his 13 assassins, probably more than the original. but it was obviously cut for a 15 certificate and that started to annoy me after a while.

his remake of harakiri is also worth a watch

my fave miike is Happiness of the Katakuris but your average viewer should also prob see audition, ichi, bird people, shinjuku triad and if you want to put a capstone on it, citizen q

Thanks for the list, Robert Adam Gilmour, I'll use that as a guide.

I'm considering catching Shield of Straw at the festival, anyone seen that? Logistics, and all that. Also, I saw Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Tokyo Sonata last wednesday, which is amazing, and I think I'll catch his new, Real, tomorrow.

I saw Shield of Straw on a plane. Fun for a while.

Any fans of Great Yokai War? Some terrible cgi and an overlong sentimental scene, but manages to be beautiful, joyous and magical nonetheless, one of the best family films I've seen. Lots of Chiaki Kuriyama looking like a hot King Of Fighters character and a cameo by Shigeru Mizuki. My second fave Miike.

As far as "light" Miike goes, Zebraman and Zebraman 2 are a hoot as well. The latter is one of the weirdest film experiences I've had.

Just been reading Midnight Eye's films of 2013 and one guy really hated Land Of Hope, he said that a Japanese film magazine rated that and Himizu as the worst of last year. Ouch. I didn't mind those films but I am becoming more convinced Sono is best at crazy stuff.

Midnight Eye in their recent annual roundups have painted a convincingly bleak picture of recent Japanese film.

They might be right. Saw Kurosawa's Real and Kore-Eda's Like Father, Like Son and it was kinda lifeless. What's the last really good Japanese film? Tokyo Sonata?

Haha, they loved Like Father Like Son. I'd recommend their best in year lists, but since they see a lot of films in festivals and in Japan, you might never see some of the interesting films they cover.

@clouds, I loved Zebraman! I saw it at the cinema with a bunch of other people and we were laughing at the WTF-ness.

Talking about Kore-Eda, last night I saw Nobody Knows. That really got to me :( Beautiful film.

I'll look through this thread for another film to watch tonight!

I loved like father like son

Surprised to see Tatooed Swordswoman/Blind Woman's Curse on fancy dual format release yesterday. I've saw a few other Teruo Ishii films but none really grabbed me.

midnight eye is pretty much what i rely on to "follow" the commercial japanese cinema that doesn't make it to the US (which is the vast majority of it, of course).

the quality may be dire on the whole, but the japanese share of domestic box office is pretty good these days. most of the big japanese hits appear to be series films, some of them anime, some not. without fail i know next to nothing about these films, and even variety and film international tend to avoid discussing them at all.

i wonder how japanese film attendance per capita compares with u.s. film attendance these days.

i'm a little wary of kore-eda. early on he seemed to chase fashions a bit (even when he was making great movies like after life and—especially—maborosi) and not so long after he introduced a twee element (yes, even in nobody knows) that i find hard to stomach. but there's no denying he's a kind of master and his recent films, however much i wish they went down a little less easy, are leaps better than the sort of comparable indie dramas that america pumps out.

Million Ryo Pot this morning. pictures of Yamanaka with Ozu in the accompanying booklet but the style is a bit more dynamic, the content a bit more humorous.

http://updateslive.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/sadao-yamanaka.html

I've written a bit about Like Father, Like Son on my blog: http://centrifugue.blogspot.com/2014/04/cphpix-day-1112-3x3d-like-father-like.html It's the second one.

finished the last of my bfi ozu's this afternoon*, went to order the melodramas box only to find it'd gone up £8 overnight. argh.

* "Good Morning". lovely to look at and all but, y'know, fart jokes. also, a bottle in every scene...

the fart jokes are the best

Anyone seen Kumashiro's film Ichijo's Wet Lust (sometimes titled Sayuri Ichijo: Following Desire)?

I've been interested because this is apparently placed high in the Japanese canon (I don't know if there are many others with a similar position). I think it's half documentary about a stripper, half sexploitation.

these recent titles upcoming in NYC familiar to anyone?

http://www.japansociety.org/page/programs/film/japan-cuts-2014

Why Don't You Play in Hell is pretty fun, and is also about the joy of 35mm. http://centrifugue.blogspot.com/2014/04/cphpix-day-2-jealousy-why-dont-you-play.html

you really have stuff covered, Frederik.

i know the people who program that series; they are generally very much on their game

all but two of those are unfamiliar to me; i'm jealous of folks t hat would get to see them. japan makes so many new movies a year and i see, maybe, two or three. it's embarrassing.

Tsukamoto's new film Fires On The Plain is supposed to be an extremely graphic war film based on a Shohei Ooka book that was previously adapted by Kon Ichikawa.

I can't wait.

prize title:

http://www.japansociety.org/event/inflatable-sex-doll-of-the-wastelands

I'm working on this one. Live avant-garde impressionistic live scoring on shamisen and percussion to a classic prewar Japanese film
http://www.japansociety.org/event/the-shamisen-sessions-vol-2-yumiko-tanaka

Bought a few more, up to 80 something now. Original hara kiri, kagemusha and silent duel, all new to me and less than 18 quid for the three. Now just got to find time to watch them...

Just watched Himizu. A different kind of film from the other Sono films I've seen (way less gory, albeit still very violent). Pretty powerful and effective. Not sure how much the Fukushima-related insertions are necessary, would have been very affecting regardless.

Been watching a few militant-ish Japanese films - I am sorta preoccupied with Oshima's In the Realm of the Senses, and the work of Nagisa Oshima in general. Picked Joan Allen's BFI monograph on the film too.

Mandara (Akio Jissoji, 1971)
United Red Army (Wakamatsu, 2008)
Serial Killer (Adachi, 1969)
Postwar History of Japan as Told by a Bar Hostess (Imamura, 1970)
Dear Summer Sister (Oshima, 1972)

Mandara is flat out amazing, a dbl bill w/In the Realm... could be fruitful, its a story around a sex/religious cult. Jissoji (like Yoshida and Shinoda) relishes the license given in this non-commercial gig (Art Theatre Guild was set up to make more new wavey-films) and inserts a set of bizarre tracking shots along the beach (recalls Levy's Herostratus), the music is church organ type (different tone but in the context its very Marienbad.., the rape scenes are akin to Strawdogs (made around the same time). The Buddhist dimension looks forward to Kin ki-duk. Comes with these long-ish arguments that we all ask - how to live? What was lost through the embrace of modernity? And the key - what was repressed? Sexuality for one.

The Imamura is one of his best - again the Bar Hostess has to fight. No story of survival, she just lives, and really has the economic power - men rely on her for money so seeing this play out is great. The skill here is in Imamura drawing her story out via newsreels they watch together - of Hiroshima, the royal wedding, the demonstrations against US occupation and Vietnam. She has that mixed lower-middle politics (this is basically Naruse's world). Hates the Royals but never bothered with demonstrations so she goes to watch Gone with the Wind instead. Imamura's editing is witty - comical high point: she talks of sex with an American sailor ("two bangs and he was done"), then cuts to a newsreel of Kennedy's assassination. Urgently in need of reissue (caught this torrent of a taped showing on Italian TV)

She is from an area which has an US base so there is a whole cast of sailors - whom she mostly likes.

Okinawa was also occupied by the US and given back to Japan - this is a subject of Oshima's Dear Summer Sister. A family is putting the jigsaws together, and so have we. Oshima doesn't make it easy - its a mess, but all we have to do is sit through. The loss of a culture, and how children have the trauma of adults passed on to them - all that resonates. I love Takemitsu's score, so good but kind of distracting as well.

Wakamatsu's United Red Army was ok. I've never been that impressed with a couple of the films of his I've seen from the 60s/70s, so this sorta started as Watkins like re-telling then had a brutal 45 mins as members of the cell are up in the mountains for training killing each one another, seemingly unable to carry out "self-criticism" its self-appointed leader demanded. Sorta annoyed at the score - which I later found was by Jim O'Rouke. Kinda tired, didn't have the energy of Carlos (or its inspired s/track choices). Masao Adachi was listed at the end - he was an associate of Mishima and Wakamatsu (a member of the RAF and then arrested in Lebanon five years ago) and I caught his doc Serial Killer. A few factoids of this 19 year old who went on a killing spree - one job to the next, one town to the next, etc. - overlaid with images: the street, alleyways, the park, some of these are peopled, some have a 6am feel. Oh and military parades - so you know what that is telling you - comes with a free jazz-ish score.

I watched Tokyo Tribe from Sion Sono tonight at Gothenburg Film Fest. That one is weird as fuck, destined to be a cult feature. Japanese hip-hop opera with tanks and bejeweled katanas and thongs and gangwarfare and scratching grandmas and a bunch of other weird ideas. Blogged some more about it here: http://centrifugue.blogspot.com/2015/01/giff-day-1-timbuktu-mateo-tokyo-tribe.html

Just watched Himizu. A different kind of film from the other Sono films I've seen (way less gory, albeit still very violent). Pretty powerful and effective. Not sure how much the Fukushima-related insertions are necessary, would have been very affecting regardless.

― Basically / I Don't Wanna Be / An mp3 / 3-2-0 kb / ps (Craigo Boingo)

insertions not strictly necessary, but an amazing interpolation of the moment. loved the film, though i found the (male) protagonist's angst-ridden diffidence a bit overstated. up there with love exposure, strange circus and guilty of romance? yeah, almost.

wanna see tokyo tribe, not sure why i haven't yet

'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

― Milton Parker, Monday, January 9, 2012 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Milton watched this last night - score was amazing, really one of Takemitsu's best. Almost overwhelmed the film.

Really sucks that the Asian film dvd releases have dried up so much, especially when all sorts of stuff is coming out on fancy bluray editions. Maybe the main audience for a lot of this stuff is just torrenting everything?

Third Window is still going but there's no sign of any of Sion Sono's films since Land Of Hope.
Here's their 2015 releases, which I hope there will be more of.
http://us1.campaign-archive2.com/?u=75efa0407558406b19a943c40&id=d69b433f90

Here is a piece about some of the difficulties Third Window have had from a few years ago. Some things specific to way UK film business works. Don't know if much will have changed.
http://twitchfilm.com/2012/06/third-window-films-stops-with-theatrical-distribution-and-this-is-why.html

yeah, that's sad. i try to buy their stuff when i can. but i admit i often save my cash for blu-rays, since i often get burned when i buy a DVD import only to see it come out on blu-ray subsequently.

Have to admit that most of the Third Window stuff looks too much on the quirky kooky indie side for my taste (which nonetheless appears to be more poppy, wild and imaginative than American indie films). But I don't think they can afford a lot of the stuff Tartan used to put out.

here in the states the studio boutiques like sony pictures classics occasionally pick up a japanese film they think might get a little awards buzz but in general its terra incognita. i actually /have/ to use torrent sites to find a lot of recent japanese stuff; it's the only place to get subtitled copies.

i emailed third window with some suggestions of 1980s and 1990s japanese films they might consider picking up, but i'm not in the business so i wouldn't presume to know what their economic calculations are when they decide what to release.

so many important japanese directors of last 30 years are almost completely unknown in the states, e.g. jun ichikawa (only "tony takitani,' not one of his better films IMO, got distributed here), sogo ishii, shuinichi nagasaki, shinji somai, masayuki suo....