Japanese Movies/Discussion/Recommendations

Tu_triky wrote:Finished watching Minna no Ie (2001) a Koki Mitani film; he also directed Radio no Jikan and Uchouten Hotel. Minna no Ie is a worthwhile comedy with a great cast of characters that all add to the laughs of the film. A solid film that illustrates its Japanese roots in the conflicts portrayed throughout the film. If you want to laugh, check this film out.

I haven't seen this, but in general, you can't go wrong with a Mitani work (film or drama).

dochira wrote:
I haven't seen this, but in general, you can't go wrong with a Mitani work (film or drama).

Well said; I've come to realize the truth of your statement. :)

dochira wrote:
I haven't seen this, but in general, you can't go wrong with a Mitani work (film or drama).

I wholeheartedly agree. He's a brilliant screenwriter.

I just wish more of his dorama series were English subbed and readily available. It would be interesting to see if his other TV series approach the quality of Ohsama no Resutoran or Furuhata Ninzaburo.

With his theatrical movies, most of them have been English subbed although only one (Radio no Jikan) has actually been released for sale in the U.S.

Speaking of English, I've seen him in interviews where he seems pretty fluent in English.

I wonder what his next project is?

Yow, got a little crazy and went through the first four (of five) Miyamoto Musashi episodes that I downloaded from AsianDVDClub... :sweat:

Having seen the Inagaki Hiroshi and NHK Taiga versions, this movie series falls right in the middle of the two, story-wise, and is closer to the NHK version... In fact, I'd sorta say that it's almost a summarized version of the NHK Taiga.

The action is choreographed much better than either the Inagaki version or the Taiga... At times, it's longer on exposition that the Inagaki version, which makes it taxing, but less so than the Taiga.


Interesting things I noticed:

-- The person who plays Takuan (Mikune Rentaro) in this version, played Matahachi in the Inagaki version...

-- Kimura Isao, who plays Matahachi in this movie series was the young novice samurai, Okamoto Katsuhiro, in Kurosawa's Seven Samurai...

-- Famed yakuza-genre actor Takakura Ken plays Sasaki Kojiro...

bmwracer wrote:Yow, got a little crazy and went through the first four (of five) Miyamoto Musashi episodes that I downloaded from AsianDVDClub... :sweat:

Having seen the Inagaki Hiroshi and NHK Taiga versions, this movie series falls right in the middle of the two, story-wise, and is closer to the NHK version... In fact, I'd sorta say that it's almost a summarized version of the NHK Taiga.

The action is choreographed much better than either the Inagaki version or the Taiga... At times, it's longer on exposition that the Inagaki version, which makes it taxing, but less so than the Taiga.


Interesting things I noticed:

-- The person who plays Takuan (Mikune Rentaro) in this version, played Matahachi in the Inagaki version...

-- Kimura Isao, who plays Matahachi in this movie series was the young novice samurai, Okamoto Katsuhiro, in Kurosawa's Seven Samurai...

-- Famed yakuza-genre actor Takakura Ken plays Sasaki Kojiro...

Speaking of Jidaigeki films, I saw a comic one today. I dl'ed the film from FSS:

Yajikita dochu Teresuko aka Three for the Road

It was pretty funny. Recommended.

shin2 wrote:
I wonder what his next project is?

Heh heh, I've answered my own question (following is an article from Japan Times):

King of comedy scores again

By MARK SCHILLING
Koki Mitani is the reigning king of comedy in Japan, as the writer and sometimes director of a string of hit stage plays, TV series and three feature films that culminated in 2006 with "The Uchoten Hotel (Suite Dream)." This laugh-packed take-off on the 1932 Greta Garbo classic "Grand Hotel," based on an original script by Mitani, earned an astounding _6.06 billion at the box office.

As a consequence, Mitani is now in the rare position of being able to do nearly anything he wants in the movie line. He is also under pressure to surpass his own achievements (some of which is self-imposed). When he announced his fourth feature, "The Magic Hour," last summer \ saying he wanted to make "a perfect comedy that will go down in history" and "make the audience laugh three times a minute" \ I had a foreboding that he was about to commit what the French called a folie de grandeur. That is, an overblown disaster.

Fortunately, "The Magic Hour" is Mitani still doing what he does best \ taking a clever premise to its comically logical (that is, absurd) conclusion with polish and craft, much of which he learned from a close study of Billy Wilder and other auteurs of the classic Hollywood comedy.

But Mitani began his career, in college, as a playwright and theater-troupe director, and still sees himself primarily as a man of the theater. Hence it's not surprising that "The Magic Hour," like all of his films, feels as though it's unfolding under a proscenium arch. The set, which seems inspired by the Prohibition-era musical "Guys and Dolls," would look at home on a stage. Also, the actors, though film veterans all, often seem to be emoting to the balcony.

Mitani's love and respect for the movie world \ in which he still sees himself as an amateur \ shines through, however, especially with regard to the craftsmen and technicians who keep the gears turning. The final credits sequence is stop-motion footage of these folks building the main set \ an enormous, painstaking labor that makes criticism of the film itself feel churlish. Not that that's going to stop me.

The story begins in Sukago ("Chicago"), a port town that, with its quaint Western-style buildings, looks caught in a 1920s time warp. But things soon become unidyllic when the local gang boss, the portly Teshio (Toshiyuki Nishida), discovers his ex-chorus-girl moll, Mari (Erin Fukatsu), in the bedroom of her nervous gangster lover, Bingo (Satoshi Tsumabuki).

The quick-thinking Bingo saves his hide by telling the boss he knows the whereabouts of a legendary hit man, Della Togashi, that the boss wants to meet (for reasons that aren't disclosed). After promising to find Della within a week, Bingo begins a desperate search, since he hasn't a clue where he might be. Then he has the brainstorm of hiring Taiki Murata (Koichi Sato), a third-rate actor reduced to bit roles, into playing Della for his new movie, which is completely bogus, for a percentage of the box office, which will be zero.

Murata and his bumbling manager (Fumiyo Kohinata) suspect something fishy, but Bingo, by enlisting a good-natured waitress (Haruka Ayase) and bartender (Goro Ibuki) from a local club as "crew," and borrowing a camera from a real film production on location, assuages their doubts \ for the time being.

The laughs start after this elaborate setup, when Murata, in full yakuza gangster mode, swaggers into the boss's office armed with only a rubber pistol, thinking that the thugs within are fellow thespians. A fan of an old Toho action film that, in the course of the story, he sees again and again, Murata imagines himself as the film's cool, fearless hero and, immersed in his role, flabbergasts the boss and his underlings with his suicidal bravado. They take him for the real gangster deal, while Murata begins to dream again of stardom.

Mitani, unlike the famously unsentimental Wilder, baldly inserts dramatic confrontations and heartwarming moments, presumably to add emotional weight to what would otherwise be lighter-than-air entertainment. Fortunately, he handles Murata's struggle to regain his professional self-respect \ the heart of his story \ with more subtlety, because he knows its real-life context so well.

It could be argued, in fact, that the world of stage and screen is all Mitani truly understands or cares about. This, after all, is a man who has written three film scripts \ ("Radio no Jikan (Welcome Back, Mr. McDonald)" in 1997, "Minna no Ie (Everybody's House)," in 2001 and "Warai no Daigaku (The University of Laughs)" in 2004 \ in which the hero is a scriptwriter. Even Bingo is a writer/producer/director of sorts.

"The Magic Hour" may refer to the brief window of time before sunset when filming conditions are best, but the film itself is also magic of the comic kind. Sit back, enjoy and don't worry about the man behind the curtain, pulling the strings \ he's blowing massive smoke, but the journey he's sending you on is pure entertainment. His only message: There's no business like show business.

Continuing to follow in Tu_triky's footsteps, I watched Yajikita Dochu Teresuko.

I liked it for a number of reasons. First of all, the three leads were all accomplished actors: Nakamura Kanzaburo, Emoto Akira, and Koizumi Kyoko. Second of all, there was nary a fanboy's or fangirl's wet dream in sight. Third, there were some nice little quirks which made it more interesting like taking the tanuki myth and using it in an innovative way or having Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue played on a shamisen. Overall it's a entertaining, funny movie set during the Edo period.

Leaving the Tu_triky trail, I also watched Tsubaki Sanjuro, the remake of Kurosawa's excellent sequel to his classic Yojimbo.

The remake, which came out less than a year ago, used Kurosawa's original script so scene after scene is replicated from the original.

The problem is the horrible miscasting of Oda Yuji in the title role.

What a disastrous decision.

Oda will always have a soft place in my heart for his role as the protagonist in the Odoru Daisousasen franchise, arguably the most successful dorama-based franchise in history.

But as the eponymous hero in Tsubaki Sanjuro, he is terrible. He is neither physically menacing nor sardonically intimidating. He has neither the face of a grizzled cynic nor the bearing of a brutal killing machine.

Stupid stupid stupid.

shin2 wrote:Continuing to follow in Tu_triky's footsteps, I watched Yajikita Dochu Teresuko.

That move is funny. Really entertaining. It's not easy to find a comic jidaigeki film.

I liked it for a number of reasons. First of all, the three leads were all accomplished actors: Nakamura Kanzaburo, Emoto Akira, and Koizumi Kyoko. Second of all, there was nary a fanboy's or fangirl's wet dream in sight.

:hehe:

Third, there were some nice little quirks which made it more interesting like taking the tanuki myth and using it in an innovative way or having Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue played on a shamisen. Overall it's a entertaining, funny movie set during the Edo period.

Yeah that was so unexpectedly cool that they used Gerhswin on the soundtrack.

Leaving the Tu_triky trail, I also watched Tsubaki Sanjuro, the remake of Kurosawa's excellent sequel to his classic Yojimbo.

The remake, which came out less than a year ago, used Kurosawa's original script so scene after scene is replicated from the original.

The problem is the horrible miscasting of Oda Yuji in the title role.

What a disastrous decision.

Oda will always have a soft place in my heart for his role as the protagonist in the Odoru Daisousasen franchise, arguably the most successful dorama-based franchise in history.

But as the eponymous hero in Tsubaki Sanjuro, he is terrible. He is neither physically menacing nor sardonically intimidating. He has neither the face of a grizzled cynic nor the bearing of a brutal killing machine.

Stupid stupid stupid.

I actually have this film...perhaps I'll kick it further down the list of things to watch...or delete it.

I think I posted on here a few months ago. Obviously, I've seen a lot of movies since then, so I'll try to keep the list somewhat short!

Riri Shushu no Subete -- A -- Best Japanese film I've seen all year. I was totally expecting to be annoyed by it, but I ended up falling in love. Masterful, poetic, moving, and so much more.
Niji no Megami -- B+ -- Another surprise gem. Ueno Juri gives an outstanding performance, and Ichihara isn't too far behind. The whole death/romance theme has been done to death (not really spoiling anything), especially in East Asia, but this is one of the few that's well-made on almost every level.
Pikunikku -- B -- I liked it. Iwai is quickly growing on me.
Tenkousei ('80s) -- B+ -- Classic in my book (even though there were no subs and my Japanese is terrible); that basically sums up my view of it.
Tenten -- B -- What intrigued me the most about this film was the concept of two guys wandering around Tokyo while having conversations and occasionally meeting odd characters. Somewhere in the second half of the movie, however, they settle down and form a sort of secondary family. While I liked the characters in this "family", it took a turn in a slightly less interesting direction. It's still a good movie, regardless. The Lacoste scene nearly had me in stitches.
Ima, Ai Ni Yukimasu -- C+ -- I'm going to start off by saying that the storyline is incredibly lame. However, there was something very calming about the movie, so I can see why others like it so much.
Cha no Aji -- B+ -- The creative imagery is easily this film's greatest attribute, with the direction, characters, and, of course, the "Yama" song tying for a close second. I absolutely loved the scene with the animation. Beautiful work.
Mogari no Mori -- B- -- Certainly a well-made movie, but I felt that the realism, in a way, became unrealistic because of the sparse dialogue in most scenes (this seems to be a problem with a lot of realistic movies, even ones where the characters get along). People talk in real life. Anyway, the reason this movie didn't really wow me was my lack of caring for either of the two main characters. It didn't touch me at all or give me a deep understanding of what they were going through. But that might be entirely my fault.
Hachimitsu to Clover -- C -- Watched this because I was bored and was interested in seeing Aoi Yuu. It wasn't actually bad but rather somewhat mediocre. Perhaps the greatest flaw in the film is its brief length (albeit still two hours), which doesn't allow for much character development or chemisty.
Ashita no Watashi no Tsukurikata -- C -- Although the story and acting caught my attention, I wasn't a fan of the direction, and the flow kept throwing me off. And it was boring.

There are probably others, but those are some I can remember off the top of my head.

I'm looking forward to seeing some Japanese films at the NYAFF next week. :woot:

Always (2005)

Beautiful.

My thanks to shin 2 who turned me on to this movie. And to Tu_triky who recommended it.

This is a nostalgic look at life on third street, back in the mid fifties. And for the two hours that it ran... my back didn't hurt, I didn't worry about what I have to do at work tomorrow, and all the thousand and one other day to day worries had to fend for themselves... because I was just gone.

I think I want to save Always 2 for a couple of days. I'd just like to savor this one for a while.

The last movie I saw that tried to capture that time, and hit so many points right on the button, was Barry Levinson's "Avalon" (1990).

Geezer wrote:Always (2005)

Beautiful.

My thanks to shin 2 who turned me on to this movie. And to Tu_triky who recommended it.

This is a nostalgic look at life on third street, back in the mid fifties. And for the two hours that it ran... my back didn't hurt, I didn't worry about what I have to do at work tomorrow, and all the thousand and one other day to day worries had to fend for themselves... because I was just gone.

I think I want to save Always 2 for a couple of days. I'd just like to savor this one for a while.

The last movie I saw that tried to capture that time, and hit so many points right on the button, was Barry Levinson's "Avalon" (1990).

Great film. Swept the Japanese Academy Awards for that year. A romanticized look at the postwar Japanese period as the people build lives of propserity during a "new dawn." The critical acclaim garnered by this movie was well deserved.

I think I'm one of the rare people who disliked Always. :crazy:

queenofpainting wrote:I think I'm one of the rare people who disliked Always. :crazy:

Well, not everyone is into nostalgia or old fashioned (in the best sense) sentimentality.

But if eveyone had the same tastes, it would be a dull world indeed.

Personally, Always reminded me on different levels of Yamada Yoji's work, particularly his Tora-san series. For me, favorably comparing a film to a Yamada work is pretty near as a high a compliment that I can give to a movie.

One of the things that I liked about the movie was the pop and historical culture references which ran through the entire movie. Things like the whole neighborhood gathering around to watch Rikidozan unleash his trademark karate chop on TV, the introduction of coca-cola to Japanese consumers, or the ice delivery man recognizing his job would soon be non-existent.

Nice touches which contributed to the nostalgic flavor of the film.

With the temps creeping toward 100 degrees F I decided to stay inside and get some work done around the house.

But once I'd turned on the A/C I decided it would be a lot more fun to gorge myself on some movies. So I watched:

Always 2

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0953981/

Final Take

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093348/

And three differant Tange Sazen movies.

http://www.imdb.com/find?q=Tange+Sazen;s=tt

I've finally pried myself away from the TV set... dazed but delighted.

Many thanks to shin2 for furthering my education.

just saw Tegami

it was really good. not a tear-jerker, but it was definitely touching. It gave the 'what if that guy was my...' kind of impression. well that was the impression that i got since i don't have any brothers :hehe: , it's the kind of movies that get you imagining what it would be like if such things happened to you.

I must say though the intro was very slow until it got to the middle. and kinda old fashioned too; they had to introduce everyone and the background of the story all those things that happened in the past just had to be stacked in the front :bleh:

bottom line, i didn't regret buying the DVD :victory:

After being recommended by Triky and Geezer watched Always Sunset on Third Street. The Avalon analogy is a very appropriate one. :good: Funny how an actor you've not been too impressed with (Maki Horikita and Hidetaka Yoshioka) if you stick them in the right role, they really shine. :applaud:

gaijinmark wrote:After being recommended by Triky and Geezer watched Always Sunset on Third Street. The Avalon analogy is a very appropriate one. :good: Funny how an actor you've not been too impressed with (Maki Horikita and Hidetaka Yoshioka) if you stick them in the right role, they really shine. :applaud:

It's really fun to watch. Maki won best newcomer at the Japanese Academy Awards for her role in that film. I still think that was the best role I've seen her in.

For you J-movie buffs you should check out Asian DVD Club: http://asiandvdclub.org/

Lotsa movies to download... :victory:

The only hitch is that you need to maintain a good upload-to-download ratio....

bmwracer wrote:For you J-movie buffs you should check out Asian DVD Club: http://asiandvdclub.org/

Lotsa movies to download... :victory:

The only hitch is that you need to maintain a good upload-to-download ratio....

Avistaz Torrents is pretty good too...you should check it out:

www.avistaz.com

Thanks to shin2, I finally finished Yoji Yamada's Gakko trilogy. I preferred the first installment among the three, with the third film second, and Gakko 2 as my least favorite, relatively speaking. Toshiyuki Nishida shines as usual in his casual, realistic portrayals as the inspirational teacher. The guy is one of a kind. Despite his absence in the third film the performances were quite compelling, especially in the context of the Japanese recession after the bubble economy burst. Solid filmmaking.

shin2, thanks again.