Japanese Movies/Discussion/Recommendations

bmwracer wrote:
Actually, Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress inspired Star Wars... :D

I love The Hidden Fortress! It's a great story.

vibius wrote:I love The Hidden Fortress! It's a great story.

It's a great movie. :applaud:

It's an excellent film, but be warned do not go in expecting an actionfilled lot's of martial arts samurai film. It does give you a good feel for how it must have felt living during that time. I'm glad I got to see it on a big screen.

taro wrote:It's an excellent film, but be warned do not go in expecting an actionfilled lot's of martial arts samurai film. It does give you a good feel for how it must have felt living during that time.

Yeah, it had a great, natural feel to it. And the cinematography was excellent.

I'm glad I got to see it on a big screen.

Lucky...! :applaud:

I just wanted to say the comedy Himitsu no Hanazono (a/k/a My Secret Cache) with Nishida Naomi is pretty funny. Better than most other Japanese comedies I've seen, IMHO.

I also recently saw Naomi in the comedy The Happiness of the Katakuris, which just didn't work for me at all.

I'm going to watch "HOTEL VENUS" Tsuyoshi Kusanagi..Miki Nakatani, Tsunku....hehehe..they all speak in Korean.. :beaten:

im going to watch yoomaegeri soon!!! cant wait!! :woot: heeard it was a good movie

I have watched several jmovies recently.

Zebraman
Absolutely hilarious movie! Sho Aikawa wearing a silly black/white striped homemade Zebra suit! Very unusual for a Miike movie, do not expect tasteless gore scenes from this movie :hehe: Just pure entertaining!

13 Steps
Takeshi Sorimachi in a detective movie and Ren Ohsugi as a *** ***, you know who, hehe. Rena Tanaka, poor screen time from her, sad.

Hotel Hibiscus
A very different movie yet full of heartwarming scenes filled with! The movie reminds me of a Studio Ghibli movie, th movie focuses on a little girl, Taeko, and her "adventures" on the Okinawa island. Nothing much happens in the movie :)

One Missed Call
Ringu+Phone+Juon= not-so-very-original-horror-movie, definitely the most commercial stuff from Miike.

Casshern
One of the most major letdown movies I've seen of this year! I was so excited about the movie after seeing the trailer, everything so gorgeous!
The movie finally showed its flaws on the screen. Story and characters lacked any depthness, they were like robots and no story whatsoever! Battle scenes were like music videos, heavy music and a lot of motion blur added, the scenes were unclear and too fast. Where is editing work leff? Nearly 2,5 hrs! I kept checkin my watch in the cinema, "when will this end?". Hikki's bitter sweet song really fitted to the ending.
Casshern, it's like experiencin Final Fantasy games in a negative way.

Innocence
Just pure gorgeous and theme song where a children choir chanting while the drums are heavily beat!!! *hands down* Too bad not enough action scenes and too much techno political mumbo jumbos. Too sophisticated for me.

Dropped out Hotel Venus, too artistic and bleak.

Ichikawa Kon's Tokyo Olympiad - A great documentary on the 1964 Tokyo Olympics... :D

Guys, have you seen Visitor Q? This one is the bomb! It ranks up there with John Waters' finest (if you can call it that!). I watched it along Serial Mom, Francois Ozon's Sitcom (which was just ok when placed along the other 2), and Pink Flamingos.

Pemu wrote:I have watched several jmovies recently.


13 Steps
Takeshi Sorimachi in a detective movie and Ren Ohsugi as a *** ***, you know who, hehe. Rena Tanaka, poor screen time from her, sad.


Casshern
One of the most major letdown movies I've seen of this year! I was so excited about the movie after seeing the trailer, everything so gorgeous!
The movie finally showed its flaws on the screen. Story and characters lacked any depthness, they were like robots and no story whatsoever! Battle scenes were like music videos, heavy music and a lot of motion blur added, the scenes were unclear and too fast. Where is editing work leff? Nearly 2,5 hrs! I kept checkin my watch in the cinema, "when will this end?". Hikki's bitter sweet song really fitted to the ending.
Casshern, it's like experiencin Final Fantasy games in a negative way.


Dropped out Hotel Venus, too artistic and bleak.

Hehe..I like 13 Steps and I think Sorimachi delivered a very good performance.

As for Casshern..oh well, I will have to judge that later after I receive my DVD this month.

Hotel Venus..yest it's bleak but I kind of like it. Tsuyoshi did a good job. I'm not biased as in yes, I'm a big fan of his but he was good there. It is no wonder that he got awarded as best actor in Moscow International Film Festival. :mrgreen:

The last japanese flick I saw was All About Lily Chou CHou. I think Shunji Iwai is a very talented director. ANd, I just saw Yojimbo, Sanjuro and Ran. I love Kurosawa!

And OH! I will be watching Visitor Q along with Francois Ozon's Sitcom and John Waters' Serial Mom tomorrow night.

havent watched a japanese movie lately but I'm thinking of giving Ju-on a try. And maybe the english version Grudge as well to see the difference...

Here's a DVD Beaver comparison of Sanjuro DVDs: http://www.compare.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDCompare5/sanjuro.htm

Pemu wrote:I have watched several jmovies recently.

Dropped out Hotel Venus, too artistic and bleak.

Pemu,

I'm not really sure what "Dropped out" means in this context.

Does it mean that the movie was so artsy and bleak that you walked out on it? Or that you didn't bother to watch it?

I'm just wondering because I'm a Nakatani fan and I've been looking forward to seeing the movie.

But I'm not nuts. If the movie is a drag, I might not empty the check book trying to buy a 60.00 copy.

I only watched the first 1/2 hr of Hotel Venus, then stopped. I didn't like it. I'll usually finish even a bad japanese movie, but this one was in Korean, so I turned it off.

One thing that drives me nuts about Japanese DVDs is that they are outrageously priced. :grumble:

And I don't like paying a membership fee as is common at Japanese video rental stores.
-PCM

pcmodem wrote:One thing that drives me nuts about Japanese DVDs is that they are outrageously priced. :grumble:

Yeah, I've noticed that, too... Wassup with that?


Old rant: if they wanna make money, which I'm sure they wanna do, why not sub them and distribute them abroad at a lower price? I'm sure there are tons of folk who are willing to gobble up these titles...



Okay, rant complete. Returning to regular programming....

Any of ya'll's ever heard of the Fuccon Family?

Some of the funniest comedy out of Japan.

And Fuccons Special Edition - Life in Japan will be playing at the Hawaii International Film Festival in a few weeks.

http://www.hiff.org/filmlisting_tickets/synopsis.php?mid=3401&pid=FUCC&sid=3400

THAT series is too dang funny! HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA.