Japanese Movies/Discussion/Recommendations

Anyone have the soundtrack for Tenkousei: Sayonara Anata?

Okuribito is a great movie. it reminds me of the Italian "It's a wonderful life". It's a subject nobody would dare to make fun of but the script was witty and funny. Surprisingly, it was nothing very religious. And its ending is like bring the audience to a full circle.

I watched Climber's High recently. Unfortunately, I find it boring. The documentary on JAL Flight 123 was more interesting in fact.

I watched 10 promises to my dog. This basically covers the life of the dog, Socks, and the young girl, Akira(sp?), as she grew up. It was good. I could not really get into it at the start but after the set up phase, the plot moved along at a brisk pace and I found myself immersed in the story. There were some touching moments, the cast gave good performances all round. The story was not that special and Socks was not involved as much as I expected, but I thought the ways in which she is involved in the story was well-written.

Tokyo Zombie

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0451954/

On the surface, this thing looks and sounds like a cheap, cheezy, direct to video, Japanese monster movie. Worse... a Japanese Zombie movie.

But I'll let you in on a secret.

It's hilarious.

This is a well written, well acted, well directed, bit of comic satire... posing as a dollar bin Japanese monster movie.

If you don't like horror movies, or monster movies... forget it. You really won't get (or care about) what the director is doing here.

But if you understand why Sam Raimi's Evil Dead movies became such a big hit... you might want to give this one a look.

I went to the Brussels fantasy, horror and science fiction film festival to watch 20th Century Boys part one.

ItLs an all-star cast big budget movie and it was grand to see beloved actors on the big screen. One has so rarely the occasion in Europe.

Having said that, itLs not that great albeit the stunning special effects. ItLs quite faithful to the original manga, which was not such a good idea because the source material covers 24 books, three time lines and at least 20 important characters. Readers will recognise a lot of elements, non-readers will be confused by the amount of characters who all have very little screen time.

EstherM wrote:Having said that, itLs not that great albeit the stunning special effects.

Just special effects does not a good movie make. :sweat:

DVD Beaver review of three Imamura Shohei films on DVD: http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film2/DVDReviews45/pigs_pimps_prostitutes_imamura.htm

[image]

sucigam wrote:Recently watched Still Walking . Bittersweet family drama starring a couple crowd favourites here (Natsukawa Yui and Abe Hiroshi). I recommend it, nice little film.

I only just read this post, and then downloaded and watched the film immediately as the wonderful Natsukawa Yui and Abe Hiroshi are my favourite Japanese actress and actor. It's a lovely little character based film.

I also watched Tenten starring Odagiri Joe and written by the creator (I think) of Jikou Keisatsu, and it shares a very similar sort of humour. Basically, two men take a stroll through Tokyo and meet up with some strange characters. It's fun spotting the cameos from other Jikou Keisatsu cast members. As an added bonus Yoshitaka Yuriko also turns up at the end.

^ Ooh, I recently watched Tenten too! Quite the low key movie, but very memorable and charming. A simple premise that works well. Beautiful art direction. My favorite part was seeing Tomokazu Miura in a mullet :beaten: and Yoshitaka Yuriko too :inlove:

Is Jikou Keisatsu available for download anywhere?

tabemonster wrote:Is Jikou Keisatsu available for download anywhere?

The drama is available at D-Addicts. :victory:

tabemonster wrote:
Is Jikou Keisatsu available for download anywhere?

Both seasons are available here:

http://community.livejournal.com/jdramas/tag/jikou+keisatsu

Thanks bmwracer and runpup for the links!
Has anyone read the novel Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami?
They've just announced the cast for the movie adaptation. It's one of my favorite novels! I'm excited!

From Twitchfilms:

Leads cast announced for Tran Anh Hung adaptation of Haruki Murakamifs eNorwegian Woodf.

It was only just the other day that something about his thriller I Come With The Rain surfaced and Tran Anh Hungfs Japanese language adaptation of Haruki Murakamifs Norwegian Wood is now making news with the announcement of his three leadsc this is big, big news!

Kenichi Matsuyama has been chosen to play the lead as the college student Toru Watanabe, while Rinko Kikuchi plays his emotionally troubled lover Naoko. The storyfs heroine, a lively young woman named Midori, will be played by ViVi fashion model Kiko Mizuhara in her very first acting role. gNorwegian Woodh follows Torufs relationships with these two very different women, as well as his dealing with the death of a friend. Tokyograph

Kenichi is arguably one of the great young actors of his generation and Rinko has already made a name for herself internationally with Babel and Brothers Bloom and she is cute as a bugfs ear. So while this is excellent news the rub is that Norwegian Wood isnft scheduled for release until Fall of 2010.

here's the link
http://twitchfilm.net/site/view/leads-cast-announced-for-tran-anh-hung-adaptation-of-haruki-murakamis-norwe/

I'm currently working my way through the 25+ jmovies I have on my hard disk, DVDs and on various PVRs and have recently seen a couple more.

Ping Pong was written by Kudo Kankuro who also wrote Ikebukuro West Gate Park amongst others, and it has the same manic energy. Unfortunately the story is a typical of sports films and lacks any real substance. The Japanese artist-only soundtrack is excellent, especially the tracks by Supercar and Sugar Plant.

Chakushin Ari is Miike Takashi at his most commercial and least self-indulgent. An effective horror film very much in the Ringu vein, and also somewhat similar to his TV show MPD Psycho. It is genuinely creepy and shocking. It's also fun watching familiar faces from jdramas meeting their ends in various gruesome ways.

Cerebus wrote:I'm currently working my way through the 25+ jmovies I have on my hard disk, DVDs and on various PVRs and have recently seen a couple more.

I hear ya: I've got a bunch of stuff downloaded from asiandvdclub that I've yet to see... :sweat:

Cerebus wrote:

Ping Pong was written by Kudo Kankuro who also wrote Ikebukuro West Gate Park amongst others, and it has the same manic energy. Unfortunately the story is a typical of sports films and lacks any real substance. The Japanese artist-only soundtrack is excellent, especially the tracks by Supercar and Sugar Plant.

i liked this film. when it came on tv i watched because it was japanese and not really expecting much but i was pleasantly surprised.

Cerebus wrote:
sucigam wrote:
Recently watched Still Walking . Bittersweet family drama starring a couple crowd favourites here (Natsukawa Yui and Abe Hiroshi). I recommend it, nice little film.

I only just read this post, and then downloaded and watched the film immediately as the wonderful Natsukawa Yui and Abe Hiroshi are my favourite Japanese actress and actor. It's a lovely little character based film.

Still Walking is going to be released next week in a few movie theaters in Belgium :woot: I am super pleased because so few Japanese movies get European distribution.

Cerebus wrote:The Japanese artist-only soundtrack is excellent, especially the tracks by Supercar and Sugar Plant.

Supercar is my favourite Japanese band (I have my issues with Japanese pop/rock/dance/indie - besides Supercar, Cornelius, Pizzicato, Number Girl and Quruli there is not much I like) - I am going to check the Ping Pong soundtrack though, maybe ILll discover more innovative Japanese music. :victory: Thanks for bringing it up.

As much as I like the stars of Still Walking, I have to say... I just didn't like the movie. I found it slow, irritating, and depressing.

It might have gotten great at the end, but I wouldn't know because turned it off with about half an hour left. I just didn't feel like watching anymore.

Third post in a row :mrgreen:
While flying around Asia in the last few weeks I had the opportunity to check out a few Japanese movies.

A movie I can recommend very warmly is one whose title I forgot - maybe fellow Jdorama fans (sugicam perhaps) know what movie I am talking about, the word penguin is in the title.

Based on real events, Nishida Toshiyuki stars as the director of a declining Hokkaido zoo who tries with the help of his little oddball team to save the zoo and its wildlife animals. ItLs a sweet, sometimes sad and touching story.

Watched The Last Princess, the remake of the classic Hidden Fortress. Probably one of the best examples of remaking a classic.....if by that I mean an example of why NOT to remake a classic. Other than Abe Hiroshi's performance as General Makabe Rokurota(way too little of him), nothing about this movie impressed me. Nagasawa Masami's performance could be best described as "trying too hard"; her every movement and dialogue looked forced and unnatural. Story was very weak, shifting focus from the General in the original to Takezo, one of the peasants.(no doubt because the actor was obviously a "heartthrob"). What was suppose to be a "birth of a hero" story failed because there was no character progression. Instead we have a loud-mouthed, uncharismatic lead that everyone believes in and falls in love with because the script forces that upon us. I think I'm going to start watching older Japanese films if this and Azumi are examples of what Japan craps out these days.