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sushi · Joined: 28 Aug 2005 Posts: 145

Hoping to see some first rate Japanese productions. Are there any that are considered Japanese classics so to speak. Every country seems to have it's cult or avant garde type movies. What's Japan's?

Sage · Joined: 09 Apr 2003 Posts: 144 Location: Iwate no inaka!

Most of the stuff by Studio Ghibli would be a good place to start.

Temujin · Joined: 14 Sep 2005 Posts: 90 Location: Osaka

Anything by Kurosawa Akira would be a good start (The Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, Roshomon).

Personally, my favourite director is Miike Takashi (Audition, Dead or Alive 1, 2 and final, Gozu). This guy makes 5+ films a year and rarely disappoints.

Midnight Eye is a great resource for Japanese cinema: http://www.midnighteye.com/index.php

Japanese cinema is incredible - the best in the world in my opinion. Enjoy.

JaredW · Posted: Thu Sep 29, 2005 7:30 pm Post subject:

Kurosawa favorite: Kagemusha

JimDunlop2 · Joined: 31 Jan 2003 Posts: 2286 Location: Japan

cornishmuppet · Joined: 27 Mar 2004 Posts: 642 Location: Nagano, Japan

Japanese horrors rock. I used to watch them back in England, and have seen a few out here. Much, much scarier than the US remakes. Juon scared the hell out of me, though I didn't have a clue what was going on! Saying that, Juon2 sucked.

chris

6810 · Joined: 16 Nov 2003 Posts: 309

Don't be too hard on Japanese cinema.

I did manage to see "Nobody Knows (誰もしらない) " the other week and it really was excellent. 北の零年 was also pretty cool. They are both pretty recent Japanese flicks. The new Shinobi film looks pretty cool too.

There is some good stuff out there but there is also a lot of garbage. But then again, it is garbage tailored for a particular audience who get what they want. Seriously, one could easilty say the same thing about American cinema. That there is so much rot and crap etc with a few gems.

jimbo8282 · Joined: 26 Sep 2005 Posts: 6 Location: Glasgow, Scotland

kitano takeshi (gritty violent stuff)

miike takashi (weird ultra violence)

anything by kurosawa, (epic samurai violence)

ozu (for older classics with the possibilities of violence)

seems to be a running theme here... i love all this stuff but don't get me wrong there are loads of great non violent movies - good new stuff too coming out too. and i would definitely recommend all the new studio ghibli animation.

hollywood wouldn't be stealing all their ideas if their cinema wasn't any good now, would it?

LobsterSan · Joined: 26 Apr 2005 Posts: 17 Location: Fukuoka

Temujin · Joined: 14 Sep 2005 Posts: 90 Location: Osaka

dajiang · Joined: 13 May 2004 Posts: 663 Location: Guilin!

My all time favourite: 'Sonatine' (with Takeshi Kitano)

One more absolutely-have-to-see-can't-miss-cuz-its-brilliant movie is 'Akira', which is the movie that made Manga what it is now.

Like mentioned before all the Kurosawa stuff is excellent.
Tampopo is really nice too.

Dajiang

rai · Joined: 19 Jun 2005 Posts: 119 Location: Osaka

I like the director Shunji Iwai. Are you in Japan? The Japanese DVD's of my two favorite Shunji Iwai movies, Swallowtail Butterfly, and Love Letters, have English subtitles. Swallowtail is often described as the Japanese Pulp Fiction, but like all such comparisons, it's misleading. The movie follows the lives of a group of outcasts (foreigners) in Japan, and comments on how Japan treats foreigners. That sounds boring, but it is also a cool, stylish gangster flick, with completely unpredictable twists and turns.

Love Letters is completely different, but still great. A women whose fiancee dies, starts to realize how little she knew about him. There's a mysterious other women who looks like the lead actress's twin, which leads to some plot complications that result in an emotionally powerful ending. Great stuff.

All About Lily Chou Chou, also from Iwai, was recently released in America. It follows the life of a bullied Japanese junior high boy, and it's a bit slow and just too long. Iwai is not good at filming violence convincingly, but having worked in Japanese junior highs for the last five years, I can tell you that the movie is very accurate in its depiction of them. The Japanese DVD DOES NOT have English subtitles.

Shimosuwa Monogatari (English title: Kamikaze Girls) is a fun, pop-art lesbian love story. A "gosu-loli" (gothic lolita) girl falls for a "Yanqui" (tough-talking biker chick). It's sweet, fun and cartoony with some over-the-top comedy and bathroom humor. Fun and stupid. There's no actual hot girl-on-girl action, unfortunately...Also, the Japanese DVD doesn't have English subtitles.

A Funeral Parade of Roses is an amazing gay, cult flick from @ 1969 (I guess most gay films were considered "cult" movies back in the sixties). It follows the lives of some transvestites working in the gay bars of Tokyo, and features some great location shots of late sixties Tokyo. There's also some great freak-out sixties-style cinematography. The Japanese DVD has English subtitles.

I also have to recommend the sixties yakuza flicks of Seijun Suzuki, especially Branded to Kill and Tokyo Drifter. Branded to Kill is a strange little flick that got Suzuki fired by his studio (the famous quote from the studio chief, "We don't need movies that the audience doesn't understand.") The number three contract killer for the yakuza blows an assignment, so he becomes the target for the number one killer. It's a trippy, surreal flick that I have watched MANY times.

There's a LOTTA great Japanese cinema beyond Kurosawa, Ozu and Kitano, ya just gotta look for it.

6810 · Joined: 16 Nov 2003 Posts: 309

***Yeah! I totally forgot Swallowtail Butterfly. That's a great film with a really cool Japanese Indie rock soundtrack too (Yen Town Band featuring Chara - go rent it at your local video store!).

***Love letter is great, I forgot that one too. But you did leave a good one off...

***Life. I forget most of the details but it is about an intellectually disabled woman who kills her sister and makes a run for it and starts a new life elsewhere. A beautiful film.

sushi · Joined: 28 Aug 2005 Posts: 145

I seem to remember that the movie "The Seven Samurais" was adapted to a Hollywood movie. Wasn't it the "Magnificent Seven" of years ago starring Yul Brynner, Eli Wallach and a few other top notch acters popular at the time?

tokyo story · Joined: 07 Sep 2005 Posts: 40

sushi,

I did my MA in screenwriting, and I was a film student throughout my undergraduate studies. I can safely say that Japan has produced some of the greatest filmmakers the world has ever seen.

Here are 10 classics of Japanese cinema to get you started:

1. Tokyo Story, Yasujiro Ozu
2. Sansho the Bailiff, Kenji Mizoguchi
3. Floating Clouds, Mikio Naruse
4. Humanity and Paper Balloons, Sadao Yamanaka
5. A Hero of Tokyo, Hiroshi Shimizu
6. Woman of the Dunes, Hiroshi Teshigahara
7. Vengence is Mine, Shohei Imamura
8. Shall we Dance?, Masayuki Suo
9. Grave of the Fireflies, Isao Takahata
10. Tampopo, Juzo Itami

That's just the tip of an incredibly big iceberg.