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ilikerice · Joined: 05 Aug 2004 Posts: 14

Hi, was wondering if anyone would like to recommended some japanese movies.

if japanese is spoken that's great cuz it can help my domo skosh japanese, or movies/documentaries about japan's history (WWII,...etc), or anything somehow related to Japan.

thanks for any info. domo arigato.

blue jay · Posted: Thu Jan 20, 2005 12:44 am Post subject:

PAULH · Joined: 28 Jan 2003 Posts: 4672 Location: Western Japan

Nismo · Joined: 27 Jul 2004 Posts: 520

Tampopo, Tanpopo, or any other variation of romanization you can find. (hilarious!)

Any Miyazaki flick. (He's like Disney, only good) The order I favor his films in:
1. Laputa: The Castle in the Sky (tenkuu no shiro rapyuta)
2. Princess Mononoke (Mononoke Hime)
3. Spirited Away (Sen to Chihiro)
4. Kiki's Delivery Service (Majo no Takkyuubin)
5. My Neighbor Totoro (Tonari no Totoro)
*those are the only 5 of his films I've seen*

If you want to really jump in to the language, watch all 5 of the "jingi naki tatakai" films. (The Yakuza Papers: Battles Without Honor and Humanity) They are superb in the sort of way cult-hits are. The director was Kinji Fukasaku, director of Battle Royal and co-director of Tora! Tora! Tora! Also, Kill Bill Vol. 1 was dedicated to him.

An alternative would be to buy original movies in English, but watch them with Japanese audio turned on. You might be able to pick up lines that you are already familiar with from the English dialogue.

Kurosawa is the master of film-makers in the entire world, not just limited to Japan. However, his dialogue will be difficult to grasp, but it will give you a great outlook on Japanese culture. Drunken Angel (yoidore tenshi) is great. Seven Samurai (shichinin no samurai) is the finest film ever made, especially in terms of character development. After watching his films you can pick out his influence in modern film makers, especially in regards to extra-close-up expression shots.

Ajia · Joined: 22 Jun 2004 Posts: 31 Location: Mie-ken

This might not be what you are looking for.......but I must recommend these Japanese movies------Ju-On(really scary!!!!) or the same movie in English --The Grudge with the American actors set in Japan(not as scary) and The Suicide Club.

blue jay · Posted: Sun Jan 23, 2005 6:48 pm Post subject:

If you like horror movies:

Ring (the American version)
Ringu (the Japanese version)

ilikerice · Joined: 05 Aug 2004 Posts: 14

Excellent. Thanks for all suggestions. So far I've seen seven samurai and yojimbo, both great. Thanks for posting. arigato.

Captain Onigiri · Joined: 20 Jan 2005 Posts: 103 Location: fly-over land

There is some nice anime out there. You just have to trudge through all the anime that has robots shooting lasers on the cover. Fruits Basket, His and Her Circumstance, Tokyo Godfathers, and Last Exile are examples of ones that have good storylines and are available with Nihon-go and English language and subtitles in the menu options. At least the copies I got from Amazon.Com do. Amazon will tell you what languages are available on the disc in the 'Details' part. Just be aware that if you see any of the really inexpensive tri-fold box sets; those are actually pirated bootleg copies from China and the artists that brought you the story don't receive any renumeration for those. Er, just so you know...
Make note that most DVDs you buy from Amazon.com will be Region 1 (North America) and will need a Region 1 (North American) DVD player to play them. I only catch about one out of every 15 words in when I play them in Nihon-go but then again I don't speak Japanese very well.

Captain Onigiri · Joined: 20 Jan 2005 Posts: 103 Location: fly-over land

I forgot the mention the one anime that is related to Japanese history. The title is "Grave of the Fireflies" and is set in the last days of WWII and is about two Japanese orphan siblings. Very moving.

hivans · Joined: 29 Aug 2004 Posts: 51 Location: fukuoka

Personally, I have found the language in some of the historical and cultural films too difficult to follow to make it a useful learning exercise for me.

There is one movie I use a lot (becuase my next door neighbour lent me a copy). It is called "Waterboys" - and is about the subject of a high school boys synchronised swimmimg team. Before you groan, I would not choose to watch such a story in my own language but as all the characters are young, I have found the language to be a bit more accessable. The trouble is I have had to watch it several times to get a lot of vocabulary - and there really are only so many times you can watch a film about high school synchronised swimmimg.

One other movie I found useful was "Mystery Train" - mainly in English - but one section is in Japanese where Nagase Masatoshi (Hamma Mike fame I think) and his girlfriend visit Memphis. The same actor did Cold Fever which I have not seen but a friend told me had bits in Japanese, English and Icelandic and he said it was good practice.

Hope these are helpful - if you end up having to watch Water Boys 20 times - good luck!

Nismo · Joined: 27 Jul 2004 Posts: 520

Waterboys was a great movie. I won't subject myself to watching the inspired-from drama, though.

Cshannon · Joined: 10 Dec 2004 Posts: 114

My Japanese ability is negligible at present, but I know people here who have learned English exclusively from watching TV, so I'm willing to give that a shot when I go there (even though I hate TV).

Also, I don't know if you'd be into this or not, but why not try some video games? Not necessarily mindless shooter/arcade games, but something with lots of dialogue like the "Final Fantasy" series in Japanese. I remember when I was younger and actually had hours/days/weeks to burn, I would play those games in English. I always thought they'd be a good way to pick up some Japanese if they were still untranslated.

Although you can't hear spoken Japanese this way, it might not be a bad way to pick up basic vocab/grammar etc. and it's surely easier than reading serious literature, and even paperbacks/newspapers.
Of course, you'd have to be willing to shell out some $$ for the machines, which can get really expensive.

osakajojo · Joined: 15 Sep 2004 Posts: 229

My favorite Japanese movie is Shall We Dance(Masayuki Suo). It is 100% better than the American remake. Although I haven't seen the remake, I will bet 100 bucks it's much better.
Another favorite is Shark Skin Man and Peach Hip Girl(Ishii Katsuhito). It is so entertaining-like a Manga with real actors staring Asano Tadanobu.
If you wanna see alot of gore, watch Ichi the Killer (also staring Asano Tadanobu) or Audition (both by Takashi Miike) , though Audition isn't so gory, it's plenty creepy enough.
See Suicide Club and Battle Royal if you wanna see a buch of Japanese teens killing themselves and their classmates.
And of course, as mentioned earlier, any of the Studio Ghibli anime-Castles in the Sky, Grave of the Fireflies, and Spirited Away-to name a few.
If you want to see a Japanese yakuza movie set in L.A. with about half of the dialogue in Japanese, rent Brother with Beat Takeshi and Omar Elps.
If you'd prefer to watch a movie with half French and half Japanese, rent Wasabi!

Longing for Nippon · Joined: 14 Jun 2004 Posts: 49

Hi,

I have read reviews about Tampopo being very funny but cant find a copy of it on DVD to buy online at a reasonable price. Is it really rare? Id love to buy a copy so if anyone knows where i can but this please tell me. Another series of films that seem interesting are Hanzos "The Razor" series. Anyone seen these movies?