tabana wrote:

Anyone got info or review on this one? It's Maid in Akihabara or �܂��� in�@�����͂΂� (maido in akihabara)�BIt looks funny. Release Date: 2006/02/24 to buy

seems interesting, wonder when it will be on bittorent.
and is there going to be densha in that too, in the maid cafe, that would be funny, but probably from the point of view of the maids

Yeah. My first impression is that it was going to be a little like Densha. I guess you're right, it might just be the girls' stories. It could be fun too.
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Watched Pistol Opera (starring Makiko Esumi) yesterday and thought it was even more disjointed and weird than its predecessor, Branded To Kill...

I'll have to watch it again, but it was just a bizarre, incomprehensible movie.

bmwracer wrote:

Watched Pistol Opera (starring Makiko Esumi) yesterday and thought it was even more disjointed and weird than its predecessor, Branded To Kill... I'll have to watch it again, but it was just a bizarre, incomprehensible movie.

Bingo!

I have no idea how someone who hadn't seen "Branded..." first would react to "Pistol Opera". (Probably walk away thinking the director was on drugs.)
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Manga is to Literature
what Graffiti is to Art

Rinrin wrote:

Yup! It's a musical! A lot of the Odagiri Joe fans have checked it out. The reviews there are not so great. Even I didn't really like it all that much, though the movie did have it's moments.

I'm one of them. Didn't get past the first half hour.

Geezer wrote:

Bingo! I have no idea how someone who hadn't seen "Branded..." first would react to "Pistol Opera". (Probably walk away thinking the director was on drugs.)

This movie, like Branded, requires multiple viewings over time, 'cause your attention wanes/lapses as you're trying to figure out what's going on in a previous scene....

Branded kept my interest both times i watched it, and i thoroughly enjoyed it ...
Pistol... put me to sleep all 5 times i tried, i just couldn't get into it.

krim wrote:

Branded kept my interest both times i watched it, and i thoroughly enjoyed it ... Pistol... put me to sleep all 5 times i tried, i just couldn't get into it.

Yeah, after the inital viewing of each, Branded is better and a little more cohesive (relatively speaking)... Pistol is all over the place like splattered cake batter when you turn the mixer to "high."

I originally watched Pistol for two reasons. I'm a Suzuki fan, and I liked Branded, and I'm a Makiko Esumi fan. I think she's hot, and I think she can act.

Okay, that said...

I didn't get Pistol at all the first time I saw it. Then, a while after seeing it, I was talking to a couple of other theater geeks and the conversation snaked its way to Kabuki Theater.

I admitted that I just didn't get Kabuki. I'd sat through a couple of performances, was interested in the make-up and costumes, and the general wierdness of it all. But I just didn't get it.

Oddly enough, that's when one of them brought up "Pistol Opera". (At the time, I didn't mention that I didn't get that either.)

It turns out, Suzuki is a huge fan of Kabuki, and what he was doing with Pistol was telling the same story as Branded, but in a stylized, cinematic version of Kabuki. He was using the forms, the colors, the costumes, and the sweeping sets (ie., the long yellow band down the staircase at the end of the movie?) to tell the story.

It's not a straight line, literal story, the way we're used to, comfortable with, in the west. And the reason he tried it was because most of his audience was already familiar with the story from Branded.

I've watched Pistol a couple of times now, and I'm getting more comfortable with it. And now, when I see it, I think back to some of those Kabuki performances I've seen, and I think I'm getting a better handle on what the heck they were doing.

And if all that sounds too jumbled... let's just say, I thought the scene where the hit man in the wheel chair was chasing Esumi around the docks was cool.
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Branded To Kill is definitely easier to get into than Pistol Opera, though I ended up seeing Pistol first. Disjointed is a good way to put it. But it held my interest for the most part, though towards the end it was getting tough.

One of the neat bits of trivia I picked up on Suzuki is that he was fired from the studio after he made Branded To Kill because he strayed so far from the original script! Not to mention he added the whole rice-boiling thing because he reckoned any real Japanese man would love the smell of boiling rice. Yeah, this guy was nuts. Definitely

It's a first for me to recommend a movie that I know doesn't have a subtitled copy in existence. But after cracking during the week and watching it raw, here is one that everyone should see if they want to see the most inventive, crazy stuff. It's a crazy movie with a little name: House.

I don't need to write a review as that link tells it all (although perhaps a little too much. It's worth reading in full after you've seen the movie and need to know what you didn't pick up). Words fail me but you just have to see this movie. Even without knowing much (or any) Japanese you can still piece together the story. Considering the amount of awful generic j-horror that's getting churned out these days, it's a crime nobody has released a subbed version of this yet. It should be mandatory viewing for people who want to see what you can do with a bit of imagination.

Geezer wrote:

And if all that sounds too jumbled... let's just say, I thought the scene where the hit man in the wheel chair was chasing Esumi around the docks was cool.

I thought the scene was more comical than cool, but I have to admit it was one of the more lucid moments in the entire movie.

Kabuki, ne? I guess I'd better brush up on that over at Wikipedia... Maybe that'll lift the fog I'm in right now regarding Pistol...

"An Obsession"

Okay, talking about movies that are a bit puzzling.

I saw Aoyama's "An Obsession" (1997) staring Ryo Ishibashi, the other day, and I'm... puzzled.

On the surface we've got a pretty straight forward cop, crime story.

Overly dedicated cop, family life falling apart, gets shot, has to retire, wife leaves him, he becomes obsessed with trying to solve a case. Pretty standard stuff. (Pretty good too. I liked the movie.)

But there are these three scenes during the movie when we see four guys, in hazmat suits, carrying M_16s, riding around the city in a jeep, and occasionally pulling citizens over and shooting them.

They don't seem to be part of the story. The cop does acknowledge them, nods to them. But they are never referenced. They're just there.

What am I missing? Anyone know?
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I was watching Hana and Alice again, and I forgot to mention earlier that Abe Hiroshi, Takao Osawa, and Ryoko Hirosue make guest appearances. Anyway.

Jozee, the Tiger, and the Fish (2003)

Starring: Satoshi Tsumabuki (and some Juri Ueno )

Really great film about a boy who falls in love with a girl with cerebral palsy. The chemistry between the two is superb and it's just nice to watch how their relationship unfolds. I originally watched this movie just to see Juri Ueno again (even though she isn't even the lead female), but I was pleasantly surprised by the movie.

Juri Ueno, pre-Swing Girls

DougFunnieee wrote:

...Juri Ueno, pre-Swing Girls

I was wondering where I saw her before.

I might look into it.
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Has anybody seen the movie "Believer"?
I'm really interested in watching this cause Ayumi Ito

hello,

does anyone know whether Nana live-action movie starred by Mika Nakashima has already been shown in Japan?
i only saw the DVD release ad which supposed to be on 3 March 2006... but then i try to search for this title in JDorama database and it seems it's not there yet... so i'm a bit puzzled... the OST by Nakashima has already been released so should the movie, isn't it...?

i would like to watch the movie very much, but there is not much info about it

anyone can give some info about this movie? thanks a lot!!

check jpopsuki.
i think someone uploaded it there
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a-nesuto wrote:

check jpopsuki. i think someone uploaded it there

thanks for the info!

The Japanese DVD is out, but unfortunately it doesn't have english subs. btw I think this belongs in the Japanese movie thread.

DougFunnieee wrote:

btw I think this belongs in the Japanese movie thread.

Right.

Locking and merging.