Job Discussion Forums

[Revenant]

[rai]

[Jizzo T. Clown]

Kurosawa's Throne of Blood, Ran, and Stray Dog were awesome.

I too loved Swallowtail Butterfly and Love Letter.

Stray Cat Rock (forgot director) or Kitano Takeshi's Getting Any?, as well as Wild Zero (director??) are good campy fun!

[Synne]

Cure - Kyoshi Kurosawa

Survive Style 5+ - Gen Sekiguchi

[liehtzu]

Japanese films have a history of quality despite what anyone on this site may say. In the '50s they were making the best films of any country in the world, with the possible exception of the U.S. (I'd take Japan, but it's a matter of taste).

Anything made by Mizoguchi, Ozu, Naruse, Kurosawa, Teshigahara, and Imamura is worth a look. The first three in particular produced a number of masterpieces during the "Golden Age" of Japanese film. Kinos*ita Keisuke's early films (in the '50s), Ichikawa Kon's early films (late '50s through the '60s), Shinoda Masahiro's early films (in the '60s and '70s). Oshima was the furthest left of the "New Wave" and I think his films are hit and miss, I'm not a huge fan, but some are. Suzuki Seijun made (and still makes) stylish pulp nonsense, lots of flash, not much brain or soul. Fukasaku made some interesting gangster films in the '70s and capped his career with the absurdly bloody and oddly hilarious "Battle Royale." Yanagimachi Mitsuo's "Himatsuri" is one of the few high points of the '80s. Kore-eda Hirokazu is an interesting modern director. Other directors of interest: Yamanaka, Shimizu, Gosho, Toyoda, Shindo, Yamada, Itami, Kitano, and Kurosawa Kiyoshi, Ichikawa Jun and Kawase Naomi.

Some of the best:

Sisters of Gion (Mizoguchi)
Osaka Elegy (Mizoguchi)
I Was Born, But... (Ozu)
The Only Son (Ozu)
Humanity and Paper Balloons (Yamanaka)
The Million-Ryo Pot (Yamanaka)
There Was a Father (Ozu)
Stray Dog (Kurosawa)
Late Spring (Ozu)
Floating Clouds (Naruse)
The Sound of the Mountain (Naruse)
Late Chrysanthemums (Naruse)
The Mistress (Toyoda)
Sansho the Bailiff (Mizoguchi)
Ugetsu (Mizoguchi)
The Idiot (Kurosawa)
Gion Music (Mizoguchi)
The Lady of Musashino (Mizoguchi)
Floating Weeds (Ozu)
Tokyo Story (Ozu)
Early Summer (Ozu)
Early Spring (Ozu)
Tragedy of Japan (Kinos*ita)
Twenty-Four Eyes (Kinos*ita)
Burmese Harp (Ichikawa Kon)
Fires on the Plain (Ichikawa)
When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (Naruse)
A Wanderer's Notebook (Naruse)
The End of Summer (Ozu)
Tokyo Olympiad (Ichikawa)
An Actor's Revenge (Ichikawa)
Woman in the Dunes (Teshigahara)
The Face of Another (Teshigahara)
Onibaba (Shindo)
Boy (Oshima)
Pigs and Battleships (Imamura)
Pale Flower (Shinoda)
Beauty and Sadness (Shinoda)
Youth of the Beast (Suzuki)
Branded to Kill (Suzuki)
Under the Blossoming Cherry Trees (Shinoda)
Vengeance is Mine (Imamura)
Battles Without Honor or Humanity (Fukasaku)
Under the Flag of the Rising Sun (Fukasaku)
Eijanaka (Imamura)
Himatsuri (Yanagimachi)
Black Rain (Imamura)
Tampopo (Itami)
Maborosi (Koreeda)
Audition (Miike Takashi)
Hana-bi (Kitano)
The Eel (Imamura)
Dr. Akagi (Imamura)
All About Lily Chou-Chou (Iwai Shunji)
Cure (Kurosawa K)
Nobody Knows (Koreeda)

[Gordon]

So what has happened to the quality of Japanese films in the past generation or two? The acting on TV looks so amateurish too. You'd think with a population of 130 million people, there could be more than a handful of decent actors.