Japanese Movies/Discussion/Recommendations

I have seen The Face of Jizo. It's essentially a 2-person play; 95% of the movie is about the interaction between the daughter (played by Rie Miyazawa) and her father (Yoshio Harada, I think) with nearly all the scenes taking place in their family home. Very serious themes, but extremely well acted. There are some flashes of humor, but not a lot which is to be expected when you're dealing with the aftermath of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. The two leads are really outstanding in their roles; Miyazawa has become such a good actress.

Has anyone mentioned Cafe Lumiere yet?

I saw it tonight and though it might not be the worst film I've ever seen... I mean, I've seen some real pieces of drek so odds are I've seen something worse and I'm just blocking it out... it is most certainly the most boring.

I mean, this is the dullest, dreariest, emptiest, most pointless hour and forty minutes of film I've ever come across. (And I include other people's home movies in the list of films that Cafe Lumiere is more boring than.)

Of course, it didn't take me and hour and 40 minutes to watch all of it. My fast forward button got quite a workout. But even on fast forward it seemed to take forever for this thing to end.

I can't remember ever being as happy to see end credits roll.

Those end credits meant I could get onto something way more interesting. You know, like... washing the dishes.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
Sounds like a real piece of garbage. :hehe: Thanks for the warning.

Nice review Geezer :applaud:

if those two old guys.....whats their name.....Ropert and Ebert???? watched this, they'd probably give it two thumbs up or something :sweat:

:rofl: Yeah, I'm sure they would. :hehe:

I don't mind an independant film now and then, but when it's too crapy like that... :bleh:
Found it on imdb. 6.6/10 (235 votes) :confused:
Awards: 1 win & 2 nominations :crazy2:

One user comments: Hou's boring style is getting real old real fast. :hehe:

tabana,

I like the comment you found on imbd. I coudn't agree more.

Shall I bore people with a retelling of the movie? Heck, why not. It shouldn't take long. (Watch out, this might be considered a spoiler.)

The movie opens in a small apartment. A girl (played by someone named Yo Hitoto) is folding her laundry. We don't see her face. Her back is to the camera. After she's folded laundry for a few minutes, the phone rings. We hear her side of a dull conversation. We don't know who she's talking to, but it's okay, because she says nothing interesting.

A knock on the door. It's the landlord. We don't see the landlord. The girl, still with her back to the camera, puts down the phone, walks across the room, gets a present, walks back across the room, and gives it to the landlord, then returns to the phone and the laundry.

Next scene. We see trains. We see the girl on a train. Occasionally we can see her face, but only in long distance shots. Eventually the train ride ends, and we see her, from the side, or from behind, walking somewhere.

20 minutes into the movie she arrives at a book store, and has a dull, sparse conversation with a clerk about a Chinese musician from the 1930s. This is supposed to be the reason for the movie. Her search for an old jazz club called the Cafe Lumiere. (I think.)

Back on the train. Eventually to her parents home. No real conversation.

She goes to her old room and takes a nap. We watch her walk up the stairs and take her nap.

Dinner over, she's back on a train.

And it goes on and on like that for 1hr and 40 m.

The director was interested in two visuals in this movie. The sight of trains moving. And people's backs. There was actually a 3 minute scene showing 3 people, their backs to the camera, sitting at a restaurant counter, eating dinner. There was, of course, no conversation.

Plot? None. Story? None. Emotional investment? None.

I could go on. The movie does. But what's the point?

awe, if you arne't going to tell the entire story, then dont start.. now i'll never know what happens next! :puppydog:



























( :rofl: )

Yeah Cafe Lumiere is a bit of an endurance test. Main reason it caught my attention (apart from Tadanobu Asano) was it had Hitoto Yo (Taiwanese/Japanese singer).

I know the idea of the movie was that it was originally supposed to be an Ozu homage. I'm still finding my way with the older Asian cinema so I haven't seen any of his movies but from what I hear they tend to use a lot of static shots. From the sounds of things the director here tried to imitate his style, but to me it felt more like an extended advert for JR. But there were times when I was almost screaming at the cameraman to just move the bloody camera even a little bit.

I still managed to get through it relatively painlessly thanks to the great shots of the Japanese countryside and towns (felt a little homesick for the place afterwards) but it's up there (for me) with Kore-eda's Distance as one of the most non-happening movies I've watched. Still, IIRC at least that had some kind of an ending.

Geezer wrote:...
Plot? None. Story? None. Emotional investment? None.

I could go on. The movie does. But what's the point?

bwahahahaha... :dielaughing:

It's even worst than I thought. I'll do a movie about me folding my laundry, clean up, washing the dishes and the final 30 minutes, me deleting spam from my inbox. :rolleyes: It's good enough to be an Alan Smithee.


The worst part is, it won an award. Who voted for this crap and what kind of pills they took? :shakehead:

Oh well okay. I didn't want to put up a spoiler, but since you insist, I'll tell you the ending of the movie.

In the end, the girl (never did get a look at her face in the movie, and I don't think she found the cafe) and the book store clerk are on a train platform.

They don't say anything to each other because he is, for some unknown reason, recording the sound of the train going by.

Then the credits roll.

And that was something of a shock to me. I couldn't figure out why they ended the movie there. So I went back to see if my fast forwarding had cut off some important dialogue... but no. They didn't say anything to each other at all.

The End.

See! I hope you're happy. Now you've made me ruin the ending for everyone!

Geezer wrote:...
See! I hope you're happy. Now you've made me ruin the ending for everyone!

I'm sure everybody's grateful. You just saved us from wasting 2 hours of our lives. :mrgreen:

I recently ordered a bunch of japanese 1970's exploitation films. I haven't received the dvds yet. Anyone seen these films? Comments?

[image][image][image]
Stray Cat Rock: Sex Hunter (Meiko Kaji)
School of the Holy Beast (Norifumi Suzuki)
Angel Guts 5 disc Collection (Takashi Ishii)

The only one I've seen there is Stray Cat Rock. I've been a bit of a Meiko Kaji fan (as the avatar shows :)) ever since seeing Female Prisoner 701 Scorpion. She's just incredible.

Stray Cat Rock is pretty good. The name is a little misleading, though, as it's not really smutty pinku stuff. It's a bit rawer (Yasuharu Hasebe had a reputation for quite violent films) and well worth the look. Some neat camerawork and Meiko Kaji to boot.

If you haven't seen the Scorpion movies, I'd really recommend them. The first two in particular are amazing. I never really looked into the exploitation stuff as it always looked a bit gratuitous, but there's nothing else quite like these. They're on a whole different level.

MomoNyo wrote:
If you haven't seen the Scorpion movies, I'd really recommend them. The first two in particular are amazing. I never really looked into the exploitation stuff as it always looked a bit gratuitous, but there's nothing else quite like these. They're on a whole different level.

I own the first two films and love them, especially Jailhouse 41. I was going to buy the japanese dvds of parts 3 and 4, but I heard Media Blasters will release them on R1 dvd soon. So, I'm gonna wait and see how's the quality of their discs and then decide which one to buy.

I forgot to mention I also bought the this double pack featuring Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs and the Female Prisoner 701: Scorpion. I already own the Scorpion film (R1 Media Blasters, which is a port of Toei's release) but I had to get this pack because it features the best version of Zero Woman.
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Shurayuki-hime wrote:I was going to buy the japanese dvds of parts 3 and 4, but I heard Media Blasters will release them on R1 dvd soon. So, I'm gonna wait and see how's the quality of their discs and then decide which one to buy.

Jailhouse 41 is amazing alright. I'm waiting on those new R1 discs as well. I have a bootleg subbed copy of Grudge Song but it'd be nice to have a proper copy of it and Beast Stable, so lets hope Media Blasters do a decent job. Though it's often hard to top the Japanese discs (they have to do a good job for the price they charge for them :))

Shurayuki-hime wrote:I forgot to mention I also bought the this double pack featuring Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs and the Female Prisoner 701: Scorpion. I already own the Scorpion film (R1 Media Blasters, which is a port of Toei's release) but I had to get this pack because it features the best version of Zero Woman.

That's the only Zero Woman I've seen. Can't imagine any of the follow-ups being any better, in the same way I haven't seen any of the New Female Prisoner Scorpion movies they made in the 80s (or was it 90s?).

Since you guys are talking about essentially B-movies, have any of you seen Branded to Kill?

That is one bizarre, wacky movie.

And what is with Shishido Jo and those hamster cheeks of his? :headscratch: :hehe:

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MomoNyo wrote:
Though it's often hard to top the Japanese discs

That's true. Let's hope MB uses Toei's transfer like they did with 701. I've always been wondering why so many dvd companies want to do everything themself instead of "borrowing" a good transfer from some other company. A good example is Animeigo's R1 Lady Snowblood. I'm sure they spent a lot of time and money for the remastering process, and yet their disc looks and sounds like crap compared to the japanese dvd.

bmwracer wrote:Since you guys are talking about essentially B-movies, have any of you seen Branded to Kill?

That is one bizarre, wacky movie.

I wouldn't really call these B-movies. After all Jailhouse 41 is one of the most surreal, visually stunning and artistic movie ever made. Anyway, I've only seen two Suzuki movies, Branded to Kill and Tokyo Drifter. I liked them both very much. Can't wait to get the french dvds of these films (should be much better quality than the Criterion discs)

bmwracer wrote:Since you guys are talking about essentially B-movies, have any of you seen Branded to Kill?

That is one bizarre, wacky movie.

And what is with Shishido Jo and those hamster cheeks of his? :headscratch: :hehe:

[image]

BMW,

Allow me to shock you. Yeah, I've seen it. And I absolutely loved it.

Re: Shishido Jo's hamster cheeks (I always called them chipmunk cheeks).

I saw a recent interview with Jo on some DVD (probably a re-release of a Suzuki movie) and he talked about it. He admitted that he'd had plastic surgery shortly after the war, thinking that the puffed up cheeks would make him, in his words, "look beautiful".

He wanted to be a leading man, and he thought he had to do something to make him stand out.

Eventually there was a problem with whatever they used as implants and he had to have them removed. (Late 70's early 80s)

As a result, he has these two long, wicked looking scars on his face, running from the outside corner of each eye, down the sides of his face, to his jaw line.

But the scars never stopped him from working. He just did a lot more character parts.

Man, he's a really interesting guy to listen to.

Geezer wrote:

BMW,

Allow me to shock you. Yeah, I've seen it. And I absolutely loved it.

Re: Shishido Jo's hamster cheeks (I always called them chipmunk cheeks).

I saw a recent interview with Jo on some DVD (probably a re-release of a Suzuki movie) and he talked about it. He admitted that he'd had plastic surgery shortly after the war, thinking that the puffed up cheeks would make him, in his words, "look beautiful".

He wanted to be a leading man, and he thought he had to do something to make him stand out.

Eventually there was a problem with whatever they used as implants and he had to have them removed. (Late 70's early 80s)

As a result, he has these two long, wicked looking scars on his face, running from the outside corner of each eye, down the sides of his face, to his jaw line.

But the scars never stopped him from working. He just did a lot more character parts.

Man, he's a really interesting guy to listen to.

I knew I could count on you, Geez... :thumbsup:

I'll have to watch the flick again, since I couldn't stop staring in sick amazement at those puffy cheeks of his... What a distraction.

That said, is Tokyo Drifter as good/better?

Oh, and I knew there was something I came in here to say. (Easily distracted when it comes to Suzuki movies)

I finally got to see the 1974 season of the Zatoichi [/i]TV Series

I know, it's TV not movies, but they've just been released on DVD, and the Zatoichi fans are over here, so I thought this was the place for a comment.

I have to say I was pleased and suprized when I got the disc.

I was expecting grainy video, lots of cheap interior shots, and a basically inferior product.

Happily, what I found were 6, 46 minute long, Zatoichi movies. It was done on the same film stock. They had the same sets available, and all the extras and talented stunt men they needed.

So for me, as a Zatoichi loon, getting to see these episodes was like finding buried treasure.

Katsushin was still in his prime when he did these, and he clearly wanted to keep the quality up.