Why are Japanese films so terrible?

Have you seen Fires On The Plain yet? I really want to see it because it's Tsukamoto. The only nearby cinema cancelled it due to tech problems.

The report last year was similarly bleak. It's really sad to hear that a lot of the 80s-90s generation of directors have not been able to continue making films.

I've tried to catch it at two festivals, but scheduling, man! But yeah, I want to watch it.

Anybody keeping up with Kiyoshi Kurosawa?

Kinda. 'Penance' had it's charms. 'Real' goes off the rails and the most spectacular fashion I've seen in a looong time. That is one batshit final stretch. Haven't seen 'Seventh Code'.

Tokyo Tribe is getting UK disc releases by Eureka in June.

Wonder if that's the guy from Schaa Dara Parr I can see

I found Tokyo Tribe pretty disappointing. It's very ambitious, has some impressive visuals and some funny stuff but I think the whole thing just didn't work often enough. The music too rarely took off and the bad guys were extremely tiresome.

ooh, upcoming dvd box sets:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Battles-Without-Humanity-Blu-ray-Limited/dp/B013V721SC - 12 discs, £100

this is a bit more reasonable
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B013GM4KDG
THE SHOHEI IMAMURA MASTERPIECE COLLECTION - 5 BR, 6 DVD, 1 CD, £47

(would've liked Black Rain in that last one as well, been a while since i've seen it)

http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/lists/mikio-naruse-10-essential-films?utm_content=bufferac4f0&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitterbfi&utm_campaign=buffer

Yearning is settling nicely into the Late Spring slot in Naruse's body of work. (In other words, it's a favorite among those who go beyond the typical headliner, e.g. Tokyo Story, When a Woman Ascends the Stairs.)

Perhaps someone familiar with japanese can correct me, but I've been wondering about what on earth the title of Naomi Kawase's film Still the Water is supposed to mean. The japanese title is Futatsume no Mado, which for my limited understand of grammar I would thought have been adjective + noun as in 'The Still Water' or just 'Still Water'. So I checked it on google translate, and it said Still the Water. So then I became a bit suspicious, and went on AsianWiki, which told me the title literally means The Second Window. And now I'm wondering if someone somewhere has actually google translated a film title and made it nonsensical, and I'm wondering how much of the dialogue was mistranslated as well. There were definitely some weird quotes when I watched it.

Anyways, watching lots of Kawase, and I really like most of it. One of the most unique japanese directors at this moment, definitely, though Still the Water is not as good as the earlier stuff. Has anyone seen any of her documentaries?

"window of the second eye", i guess? or the second eye's cornea?

i've never heard of this film til now. i just googled it and the poster is of people under water.

this makes sense as the first refractive layer of the eye is the cornea. its refractive index is comparable to water's, so i assume the refraction in the water is some analogy to perceiving something at first sight?

to break down the title:

quickly though: in japanese, there are different ways to count. when counting things like eyes, they say futatsu. you can have futatsu of other things. in this case, it is of "me", which is eye. "mado" is window. "no" is used to express possession, pretend it is an apostrophe-s; e.g., "'s".

so you get:

futatsu: two/second
me: eye
no: 's
mado: window

there are so many ways to count in japanese, that not even japanese people remember the correct way to count. futatsu is just another way to count.

my confusion is, though, if the title is saying "the second eye" or "two eyes", because japanese doesn't have plural like english does.

i'll ask my (japanese) girl when i get home

whoops

futatsume means second (a way of counting like i said above)
no just shows possession, but it's not needed in the english
mado is window

sorry for the confusion

目_目

So mystery solved. Google Translate for some reason recognizes film titles. It also claims that 'Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi' means Spirited Away. Dang it, it would have been a good anecdote otherwise.

Just finished Kawase's Hanezu. Brutal. Weird. Two men vying for one girl, but it's told from the viewpoints of two mountains of legend vying for another mountain, or it might be told from one of the men in the afterlife, and there's also a dead soldier from ww2 wandering around, and one of the men is an archeologist excavating 'the birthplace of japan' or something and he might be disturbing long dormant souls, and that might be what's going on. It's really really weird, especially considering most of the film is people eating soup and looking at birds...

I like Kawase more and more, the more I think about her. Still the Water is still bad, though.

Angel Dust by Sogo Ishii. Psychological detective murder mystery with a very sedate style. I couldn't follow it very much but very nice atmospheric style, sorta triphop(?) soundtrack.

Oh man, just finished Kohei Oguri's Muddy River, and most of it is just ok, but a few scenes near the end, man. Two small boys with few friends find each other, but bad luck and bad neighborhood might drive them apart again.

Movie about children realizing that the world is shit and that people are shit and that they themselves are shitty, and there's nothing to be done about it :(

Really good film, though. Will be checking out more of Oguri.

i used to watch a lot of japanese movies and anime since i was a boy and my interest in the country grew in large part because of the motif that kids realise the world is shit and people are shit

will check that one out

anyone besides Frederik seen Tokyo Tribe?

http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/tokyo-tribe

I found Tokyo Tribe pretty disappointing. It's very ambitious, has some impressive visuals and some funny stuff but I think the whole thing just didn't work often enough. The music too rarely took off and the bad guys were extremely tiresome.

― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 20 June 2015 01:47 (4 months ago)

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/nov/25/tokyo-storys-setsuko-hara-dies-at-95

:-(

Looked to see if they had another year's roundup but their last update was half a year ago

http://www.midnighteye.com/features/reflections-in-a-midnight-eye/

Which directors are moving their films overseas? Are they moving house overseas or just getting financed from other countries?

Best Japanese film I've seen in ages: Chasuke's Journey by Sabu. Check out the colors, the light, the parades.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9_Gmj4G7BI

this, posted by Ward on the criterion thread, bodes well for more japanese dvds in the UK
http://variety.com/2016/film/global/criterion-collection-u-k-sony-1201724067/

i've had my eye on the criterion version of Human Condition trilogy for a while but it's expensive and could attract import costs. now Arrow are releasing it here, combined dvd and br, 6 disks in total, £48 though (down from £65!!).

Cool. I hope it isn't long until they get to the films I want.

Saw Naomi Kawase's An this morning, and it's far better than it's reputation. Admittedly, that doesn't say much, but I really liked it. It's celluloid, thank God, which helps a lot. Great use of light and shadow. It's uneven, as is every film by Kawase, but seriously, go give it a chance.

human condition dvds have been put back 2 months... and i've had them on pre-order since march...

human condition now put back another 6 weeks to mid september...

but the criterion collection version of samurai trilogy is coming to the uk earlier in september...
Samurai Trilogy [Criterion Collection] [Blu-ray]

however:
Price: £47.99

that's £16 a disk.

Is there a similar 50% kind of sale on Criterions over there? We're enjoying that right now in the US.

Tsukamoto's Fires On The Plain finally getting a disc release in November.

Looks good!

https://whatson.bfi.org.uk/Online/default.asp?BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::permalink=tearsandlaughter&BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::context_id=

Finally watched Tsukamoto's Fires On The Plain, it came out in 2014 and taken this long to get a disc release. It's good, he makes a lot of a small budget, it contains a particularly impressive landscape shot.

I normally don't bother with "making of" documentaries but this extra was very good. He's been trying to make this film for 20 years, he had lots of different ideas about how it might be (he toyed with making it an animated film), he wanted a much bigger film with a megastar.
There's footage of him going on a trip to collect the bones of Japanese soldiers. He wants the film to be a part of helping Japanese soldiers to speak about their experiences before they're all gone.

He says it's kind of a spiritual sequel to Bullet Ballet, uses some of the same cast. Expands on things he'd previously said about the young Japanese knowing far too little about war.

Imdb says he's making a samurai film right now. I can't wait.

wtf at this thread title

There's other threads for different countries with this title

why are 'british' films shit?

French films are shit. Porquoi?

I'm sure there was more

I must tell Pete next time I see him - if I can be bothered - that people go on about this little series of titles.

(I have probably said this before)

This is a nice piece on a Naruse film that won't be playing at the BFI melodrama fest. Will torrent.

went to give K(w)aidan a spin last night (hallowe'en and all) but the disk had discolouration over 10% of the surface and half of it wouldn't play (that's a MoC disk). the same thing is true of one of my BFI Ozu melodramas discs. they are stored in the original cases in a darkish room. and it's probably too late to send them back given that i've had them 4 years.

anyone seen any Yuzo Kawashima? Restorations in NYC:

https://www.japansociety.org/page/programs/film/yuzo-kawashima-x-ayako-wakao

went to give K(w)aidan a spin last night (hallowe'en and all) but the disk had discolouration over 10% of the surface and half of it wouldn't play (that's a MoC disk). the same thing is true of one of my BFI Ozu melodramas discs. they are stored in the original cases in a darkish room. and it's probably too late to send them back given that i've had them 4 years.

yeah, i will. found another eureka disk with the same thing (Oni Baba), so that's 3 now. i should go through the others.

Bit of a shame that all the ILX world cinema threads (Japan, France, Italy) have why-are-these-films-shit titles.

why are these thread titles shit?

Sword Of Doom - I really liked this until the ending because I've seen too many films where it ends with a haunted samurai freaking out and lashing out; such an interested situation is set up and feels kind of wasted. Nakadai's creepy smile is hilarious.

New Tsukamoto
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ISetFZ3-fI

This YT site has quite a good selection of movies from the 1920s-40s.

http://www.youtube.com/user/modernrocksong/

amazon uk has the BluRay version of The Human Condition trilogy for £15 at the moment (i paid £40 for the dvds a couple of years ago). it's 9.5 hours in total and i enjoyed it, same director as Kwaidan and Harakiri.

this is one of those classic ilx thread titles *chef kiss*

I watched Sakuran by Mika Ninagawa yesterday, which is about a delinquent courtesan in 18th century Japan. The plot’s a bit eh but the visuals were stunning - lots of red, lots of beautiful goldfish and gorgeous clothes and hair. It’s based on a manga series which can be difficult to translate into a film.

I watched this a few weeks after watching Helter Skelter, a later film by the same director. I’d read the manga this one was based on and it’s a favourite so I really enjoyed it. Again, it’s visually stunning but it handles the themes of the source material really well and it’s a better piece. It’s not quite as full-on on the body horror as the book, but it’s a really faithful adaptation. It’s got a great cast as well and is well worth your time.

I'm looking for recommendations for some good, gritty 70s cinema, Action/Thriller/Yakuza/Crime/Avant/Samurai, that kind of thing, thanks!